I checked out the newly opened Hudson Yards joining crowds of weekend curiosity seekers. There was a four-hour online wait to get a pass for climbing the stairway-to-nowhere sculpture christened the Vessel, and super-friendly staff were everywhere in the plaza and mall to direct folks around and through the class-A+, mixed-use edifice extravaganza of sparkling glass, shiny steel and glistening marble. Necks craned to look up at the differently shaped and arced towers, rising over the plaza, and take pictures of reflecting light on and off the weaving staircase structure and buildings. Most came and gawked and left without doing much shopping from all appearances. The office buildings and multi-million-dollar apartments lording above were naturally off limits. An observatory deck will be a coming attraction.

Afterwards I headed uptown to Columbus Circle and Time Warner Center, on reflection the inspiration and model for the new project. Hudson Yards is really Time Warner Center on steroids–office and residential towers rising off and around a retail pedestal anchored by luxury stores and restaurants manned by world class chefs. Instead of space for a Jazz at Lincoln Center, Hudson Yards features the Shed, its own performance arts building. Time Warner has sculptures and public art, ditto Hudson. The marble floors may be from a different quarry, but the look and feel are the same, no surprise since Hudson Yards and Time Warner were developed by Steve Ross and Related. Will one success lead to another? That's not so clear. Ross and company certainly stand to profit in the short term and the city will recoup all its tax subsidies at some point. Who can argue that erecting a mini city in its own right on top of underutilized rail yards is a big win?  But will the project stand the test of time given the ambition of the country's largest mixed-use development?

Boosters suggest Hudson Yards hearkens back to the nonpareil Rockefeller Center. But Rockefeller Center's Art Deco office buildings fit into the cityscape and its underground retail passages connect buildings from Seventh to Fifth Avenues. Even the more modest block-sized Time Warner Center helps knit together vibrant Upper West neighborhoods and nearby Lincoln Center to the midtown west business district and Broadway theater district. Hudson Yards tries a different tack to overcome being penned in by high trafficked West Street, the neighboring Javits Convention Center, and surrounding congested avenues accessing the Lincoln Tunnel. Rather than RockCen, it's more reminiscent of John Portman's fortress like Renaissance Center in Detroit–albeit Hudson is superbly executed with evident attention to quality and detail.