Last week, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the official ground breaking of 3 Hudson Boulevard, The Moinian Group's 53-story, 2 million-square-foot office tower located in the Hudson Yards District of New York City. With infrastructure work on the 34th Street 7 train station now complete, Moinian will move to complete the tower, targeting LEED Gold certification, by 2021.

VIDEO of the Governor's remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is included below.

Thank you. Thank you very much. What a pleasure to be here today. First, to Joe Moinian, what a phenomenal legacy, what a phenomenal accomplishment. Let's give him a big round of applause. Mitchell Moinian, let's give him a round of applause, I love those father-son teams. Nazee Moinian, the spirit of the Moinian group. To Jay Badame from Tishman, congratulations, you're going to do a great job. Let's give Jay a round of applause. To Peter Riguardi who is one of the best ones in real estate in the City of New York, good to be with you Peter.

This is just a great day and to me, there are two different stories today. First is a beautiful story of an immigrant success, family success, cultural success, and that is the story of the Moinian Group and the Moinian family. Joe Moinian came as an immigrant to this country, came in his teens, settled in a borough called Queens. I am a Queens person. There is a Queens mentality, you should know. People from Queens are special. When you grow up in Queens, you know that you are from an outer borough. Interestingly there is no inner boroughs, there are only outer boroughs. Queens is an outer borough, Brooklyn is an outer borough, Bronx is an outer borough, Staten Island is an outer borough. So you have a chip on your shoulder as being an outer borough person.

So a boy from Queens, and that's where Joe started, he had a very interesting first business venture. I'm still trying to get my head around it. He was in the clothing business and developed a clothing line, Billy Jack for Her. That is, literally, quoting the business line. Billy Jack for Her. Most of you are too young to remember Billy Jack. Billy Jack was 1971, it was on TV, it was a movie, Tom Laughlin played Billy Jack, he wore a cowboy hat with a very flat rim. Half Indian, half American, former Green Beret. There was a lot going on here. He could not fit into the white man's world or the Indian world and his saying was, "Make love not war." How that translated into a woman's line, I'm not really sure and why a woman would really want to wear Billy Jack's clothing, I'm not really sure. Needless to say, Joe transitioned into the real estate business, which has gone very well and probably better than Billy Jack for Her.

Joe had not just his family, Joe had an entire community before him. The story of the Persian community in New York is really a beautiful story and their solidarity and their achievement. We hear a lot of talk nowadays about immigration. Is it good? Is it bad? What made us is immigration, the infusion of talent, the infusion of energy that comes from the immigrant community. The Persians are at the top of the list of groups that have come to this country and just made it a better country and a better state. One out of four Persians has a doctoral or master's degree. Just think of that - one out of four. One of the most educated ethnic groups in the city of New York. So, he had a lot of strength behind him but his family really did this and it is an outstanding accomplishment. And I'm sure it is going to be better even in all actuality. And we congratulate him and his family and his achievement. They are the quintessential success story and New York success story. Let's give them all another round of applause.

The second story is the story of the difference that government can make when government works effectively, and the story of public-private partnership. I can tell that in this group there's a little cynicism about government. I can tell Republicans by the ties they wear. Someday I'll tell you the secret, but he truth is that the areas of the country that are doing best, are the areas where you have the most efficient, effective public-private partnership. Joe was talking about the far West Side. The far West Side did not just happen. This was not spontaneous development. The West Side was basically vacant for decades. And now all of a sudden over the past seven, ten years - bang. The hottest real estate market in the city. I wonder why, maybe lightning struck? No. this was targeted, planned development. First rule, development follows transportation. That's in the Old Testament. Book of Eisenhower. Eisenhower built the highway grid all across the country on that simple premise. Trillions of dollars of work. Development follows transportation. What was the problem with the West Side? You couldn't get there. God bless Mayor Bloomberg. God bless the MTA. They started the West Side line. And they extended the West Side Line. You now have a subway station on the corner. That changes the entire dynamic. If I can take a train there, that now opens it for development.

We just opened the Second Avenue Subway, up to 96th Street. Real estate has sky-rocketed, why? Because now you have that transportation system, you have that subway station one block away. Values are going through the roof. So the first rule was transportation. Second rule was creativity- Hudson Yards. What a great idea. Thirty years ago, the MTA proposed putting a platform over the 26 acres and building buildings on top of the train lines. Literally the MTA had the idea for the platform 30 years ago. So now you have transportation. Now you have Hudson Yards. Across the street, Javits Center. Mr. Alan Steel is here, President of the Javits Center. When it was built, it was visionary. My father opened t in 1984. It was the biggest, it was the best, it was amazing, it was an international phenomenon. That was 1984. Time goes on. Now it is no longer the biggest and the best. We are in the midst of a 1.5 million square foot expansion of Javits that will make it one of the most competitive convention centers not just in this country but literally internationally. And you're going to have many more people coming to the Javits Center than ever before.

Across the street, a block away, is Penn Farley. Penn Farley is taking the Farley Post Office, putting in the Moynihan Train Hall, and it is now another access point to Penn Station two blocks further West. So you don't have to come out at the Garden, no the 7th avenue side. You literally come out two blocks further west. Penn Farley was planned 20 years ago. As a matter of fact, it was named 20 years ago. They just forgot to build the project. But they named it. We are now under construction. Related is doing it with Steve Roth. It is going to be a train hall, restaurants, the most sophisticated transportation hub that has been built in the United States of America.

So now you start to see the new West Side. You see the transportation, Javits, Penn Farley, and it changes the whole dynamic for the West Side. And I believe this is going to be the hottest development in this city by far. Because it was always here, it always had the beautiful view of the Hudson River. It was the proximity, it was the amenities, and it was the facilities. And now all of those pieces are in place. So I think the future is going to happen here. and I think Joe and this development is getting in at exactly the right time.

And Joe's point is also right. I believe that New York is going to continue to be the place to be. You look at what we have going on. We're building more, and more advanced construction, than any state in the united states. Period.

I learned this lesson as HUD Secretary. I was HUD secretary for eight years. And I used to fly into a city, and I would literally count the cranes. And I would talk to the Chamber of Commerce and I would say look it's very simple, either you are growing and developing, or you are going backwards. Because if you're not growing and developing, then the city down the coast, the town down the coast, they're going to build and develop. Stagnation does not work. And for many years we were stagnant. When you look across the Hudson River and you see all that development in Jersey. Tell me why that development was in Jersey and not Queens West, and not the Bronx, and not part of Brooklyn. Because Jersey was more aggressive for a period of time. We learned our lesson. No one is building what we're building in this city and in this state. Penn Farley, we're going to fix Penn Station. A new airport at LaGuardia, the first new airport in the United States of America in 25 years believe it or not, is going to be LaGuardia.

New John F. Kennedy, new Kosciuszko Bridge, new 2nd Avenue Subway, new Tappan Zee Bridge. Keep growing. Keep developing. Keep the energy up. Investment begets investment. Confidence begets confidence. Growth begets growth. And that's exactly what you see here today. I congratulate the Moinians for all their hard work. They're an inspiration to all of us. For those of you who are involved in this project, it is exactly in the right place at the right time. And I think the sky's the limit. Congratulations.