CityRealty Insider > The Diamond District Still Sparkles

The Diamond District Still Sparkles

JANUARY 5, 2010

Diamonds—and a new setting—may be the economy’s best friend.

The Diamond District is located on West 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The area’s prominence as a jewelry center flourished in the ’30s (This NYTimes photo compares the Diamond District in the 1940s to the same area today) as the midtown district was handling some of the world’s largest diamond and jewelry transactions. Over ninety percent of the diamonds and fine jewelry that enter the United States today go through the Diamond District, making it one of the world’s largest centers of the industry.

Recently the 47th street Diamond District made news again: Construction has begun on a 34-story “International Gem Tower,” approved in 2006 and due to be completed mid-2011. The sleek new condominium building at 50 West 47th Street will feature both jewelry and non-jewelry tenants. The building’s developer—chief executive of the Extell Development Corporation and himself a former diamond dealer—has put up some of his own money and is banking on the project as a symbol of the city’s continued upward financial growth, as well as the industry’s ability to compete with the world’s biggest diamond centers and growing heavyweights like Dubai and Shanghai.

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