In reality that's not what happened. Amazon has had a very large unsubsidized office in Manhattan which predates their "HQ2" proposal and has quietly grown even larger in the years since I interviewed there. That they have significantly expanded their corporate offices in Hudson Yards without subsidy suggests that the tax breaks were unnecessary to begin with. Amazon was always going to staff up in NYC regardless of whether they got the tax break or not.
In general, subsidies of that sort for companies operating out of desirable locations like SF and NYC are unnecessary because the employer needs access to the highly educated talent pool in those cities far more than the city needs any individual employer.
With that in mind, to what extent do you consider this a "vindication"?
How so? I was in west Manhattan when that happened. We got the jobs and capital, not Queens.
It’s unsubsidised. But there was a hiring boom originally planned for Queens—I know people who were planning on living in Queens who had to about turn to Chelsea.
You’re correct that Queens lost because of opposition, not subsidies per se, but a lot of that opposition was churned by anti-subsidy politics.