Newly released proposal documents reveal the extent to which New York was willing to bend over backwards to win the bid for an Amazon branch office, as well as the sites the retail giant passed on in lieu of a hefty chunk of Long Island City.

Jeff Bezos, the richest man in modern history, finally announced the first recipients of his charitable Day One Fund. The initial round of grants total $134 million, representing about 1/20th of his proposed investment in the fund, and about 0.0006 per cent of his net worth.

Coinciding with a buck wild, self-published “op-ed,” Governor Andrew Cuomo went on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show this morning to double down on his decision to offer Amazon, one of the largest retailers in the world, a glut of incentives estimated to total $6 billion. The interview was a rousing success — if his intention was to make irate New Yorkers even more furious about a massive corporate handout.

Long Island City — Hundreds gathered this afternoon at Gordon Triangle, smack dab in the middle of a newly proposed campus for Amazon employees.

Ringed by local news crews, a coalition of local politicians led by City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and State Senator Michael Gianaris stated their intent to stop Bezos’s highly incentivized land grab by any means necessary.

Amazon’s gruelling, year-long HQ2 search - which mostly entailed cities across the country competing to outdo each other with the most lavish incentives, often behind closed doors — has come to a close, with the company reportedly choosing New York and Crystal City, a neighbourhood in Arlington County, Virginia.

Hot on the heels of a report that Amazon is planning to split its HQ2 between Arlington, Virginia and New York’s Long Island City, Google is reportedly looking to expand its own presence in New York City. Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the company is nearing a deal for a space in the West Village that would allow space for 12,000 new employees.

With the finish line of HQ2 drawing closer, Amazon’s metro region deathmatch took an unexpected turn today which indicated there would be no single winner.

The proposal deadline has come and gone on Amazon's unusually public search to plant a second headquarters in one of North America's metropolitan areas. Among other factors, Amazon's stated "preference" for candidates cities with a population over 1 million should have whittled possible HQ2 locales down to a few dozen. Instead, the final tally of hopefuls topped 200.