Construction of the Hudson Yards is remaking the far West Side, with skyscrapers, parks, restaurants and stores taking shape to create a new Manhattan neighborhood. NY1's Michael Scotto filed the following report.

The sound of construction hums all day at the Hudson Yards, the largest private real estate development in U.S. history where buildings are quickly rising high into the sky.

"Everything you see here is either built or under construction for our 2019 opening," said Related Hudson Yards President Jay Cross.

A model gives a sense of how it will look when the project's first phase is largely completed in 16 months. 

New office towers, apartment buildings, a hotel, shops and restaurants plus a performance space, public plazas, and a $200 million network of staircases called the Vessel. 

One office building will rise higher than the Empire State Building. 

No surprise the project is often called a city within a city. 

"I think the reason people see this as a full-fledged city is that simultaneously, we're doing retail and food and beverage and culture and destination, and public space and residential and office," Cross said.

Nearly all of it has been built above the tracks that bring trains into and out of Penn Station. 

It was a logistical and engineering feat - constructing a platform over active rail yards and then building on top of it.

Time-lapse video shows how the site has evolved over the last four and a half years. 

"It's just so massive. I mean, I don't think people get an appreciation for it until they walk the site," Cross added.

One building is envisioned as a centerpiece of the development. It will house restaurants and retail shops, including a new Neiman Marcus - at a time when brick-and-mortar stores across the city and country are closing because they just can't compete with the Internet. 

But developers say this project is a destination that will draw people in to shop. 

"I think there is something about live - whether it is live entertainment or live sports or live shopping. It's not going to go away. And we believe that this as a destination that this going to be very strong," Cross said.