From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily.

Today, supporters promised an economic transformation that would benefit generations.

Opponents feared a billion dollar giveaway to one of the world's richest companies.

How the deal to bring Amazon to New York City fell apart.

It's Thursday, February 21st.

Amazon announced plans today to hire as many as 50,000 people to fill a brand new second

corporate headquarters.

So in the fall of 2017, Amazon declares publicly that they're going to look for a new

headquarters site.

The online retail giant, currently based in Seattle, wants to open its $5 billion second

home near a North American city.

Something that would be of equal size to what they had in Seattle, where they had about

50,000 jobs and sort of taken over whole swaths as a city.

And they were going to do this somewhere else.

Now cities and states will be vying for Amazon's attention.

And they invited, essentially, the whole country to court them.

David Goodman covers New York politics for the times.

This was really seen by cities large and small across the country as something transformative.

A win could transform a city boosting its economy with tens of thousands of new jobs.

I mean, these were not just jobs at a fulfillment center, making sure the package has got where

they needed to go on time.

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