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It’s Monday. The first official day of spring is two days away.

Weather: A slight chance of flurries early in the morning, but turning sunny and rising to the mid-40s.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until Wednesday (suspended Thursday for Purim).

It’s one of the biggest real estate projects in the country in recent years, and one of the biggest in New York since Rockefeller Center was completed 80 years ago.

And taxpayers helped pay for this new $25 billion neighborhood.

Hudson Yards officially opened on Friday. Want to visit? Here’s everything you’ll need to know:

Where is it?

Hudson Yards was built above the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rail yards on the West Side of Manhattan.

What buildings are there?

There’s a shopping mall between two office towers, 10 and 30 Hudson Yards. 50 Hudson Yards is to the north and under construction. Another office building is at 55 Hudson Yards.

Then there’s 35 Hudson Yards, which is 1,000 feet high and includes shops, offices, a hotel and apartments. And over at 15 Hudson Yards, a residential building, there are separate entrances for the wealthy condo owners and the subsidized renters.

The most eye-catching buildings are the Shed, a $500 million city-sponsored arts center, and the Vessel, a 150-foot-high, $200 million structure with 2,500 climbable steps.

There’s also a major dining complex, with restaurants run by celebrity chefs like Thomas Keller, David Chang, Michael Lomonaco, Costas Spiliadis and José Andrés.

Half a dozen buildings are slated for construction west of 12th Avenue.

Who built all of this?

Mainly Stephen Ross, a billionaire developer who will move into a penthouse at Hudson Yards.

How much did it cost?

The tax breaks and other government assistance for Hudson Yards have reached nearly $6 billion, according to public records and an analysis by the New School, my colleague Matthew Haag reported.

That number is bigger than the $3 billion in tax breaks and incentives that were part of the failed attempt to entice Amazon to open a campus in Queens.

The Hudson Yards package included:

• $2.4 billion to extend the No. 7 subway line

• $1.2 billion for about four acres of parks and open space

• $359 million in interest payments on bonds when revenue from the development fell short

Some companies in New York City that planned to relocate to Hudson Yards were eligible for tax breaks:

• $25 million for BlackRock

• $5.5 million for L’Oréal USA

• $14 million for WarnerMedia

Supporters of the project point out that the subway line and the park space benefit not only Hudson Yards, but also the neighborhood in general.

[Read about the tax breaks and incentives behind Hudson Yards.]

Is Hudson Yards any good, architecturally speaking?

The Times’s architecture critic, Michael Kimmelman, called the development a “relic of dated 2000s thinking, nearly devoid of urban design,” and akin to “glass shards on top of a wall.”

“Hudson Yards glorifies a kind of surface spectacle — as if the peak ambitions of city life were consuming luxury goods and enjoying a smooth, seductive, mindless materialism,” he said.

The open space, he continued, “looks like it may end up being mostly a fancy drive-through drop-off for the shopping mall, a landscaped plaza overshadowed by office towers.”

[Read Mr. Kimmelman’s review.]

What does Mr. Ross, the Hudson Yards developer, say about the project?

Mr. Kimmelman asked, half-jokingly, “Do you imagine this as a museum of architecture?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Mr. Ross said. “We are creating a museum of architecture and a whole new way of life.”

He added, “This is New York as it should be, with everything you want at your doorstep.”

From The Times

The debate between housing and gardens is a no-brainer, says the columnist Ginia Bellafante.

#Maga Church: A doomsday prophet says the Bible predicted President Trump.

Welcome, refugees. Now pay back your travel loans.

A dominatrix moved into Bedford-Stuyvesant, setting off a gentrification struggle.

The police have charged a Staten Island man with the murder of the reputed mob boss Francesco Cali, and officials say the killing might not be related to organized crime.

[Want more news from New York and around the region? Check out our full coverage.]

The mini crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.

What we’re reading

The air quality in certain parts of the Bronx is dangerously unhealthy, according to a college student’s research. [amNew York]

Poorer residents in Brooklyn get stuck with older M.T.A. buses. [Daily News]

Why doesn’t New York State have license plates that honor the memory of Sept. 11? [New York Post]

Why the developer Stephen Ross may be “the most powerful man in New York, a Robert Moses for our age of concierge mega-urbanism.” [New York magazine]

Mayor de Blasio implied that an affair by Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, played a role in the company’s decision to cancel plans to build a major campus in Long Island City. [Politico NY]

Coming up today

Practice Chinese calligraphy at Chatham Square Library in Manhattan. 1 p.m. [Free]

Join the author Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and others at the Brooklyn Historical Society to discuss menstrual equity. 6:30 p.m. [$5]

Make your way to the Comedy Carnival at Muchmore’s in Brooklyn for popcorn, cotton candy and Purim-themed fun. 9 p.m. [$5]

— Derek Norman

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.

And finally: Celebrating the Persian New Year

Many people rang in the new year in January.

The Chinese New Year was in February.

The Persian New Year is celebrated Thursday. It is called Nowruz and coincides with spring, which begins on Wednesday.

Iranian holidays can be particularly difficult to celebrate in this country, as one Times op-ed contributor wrote last year: “While Chinese-Americans had Bruce Lee and Italian-Americans had Rocky Balboa, I had Ayatollah Khomeini and the hostage crisis.”

Awkward.

(Non-Iranians sometimes celebrate Nowruz, too, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.)

On Friday, I spoke with Dr. Rosa Nouvini, who, like me, was born and raised in New York and is of Persian descent. She has been celebrating Persian holidays all her life and is steeped in the traditions.

Compared with New Year’s Eve, “Nowruz has a deeper meaning for me,” Dr. Nouvini said. “It’s more togetherness, about roots.” She grew up on Long Island, recalling that her mother “would start spring cleaning a couple of weeks before” the occasion.

The cleaning isn’t just symbolic: Nowruz is often celebrated by visiting family members at their homes.

How can you set up a Nowruz get-together at your house?

First, offer food. (New York Times Cooking has 22 easy-to-make recipes for the Persian New Year.)

Second, put together a haft sin table, which contains seven items representing the things you’re grateful for and would like to see more of in the new year:

• An apple, for beauty

• Garlic, for good health

• Vinegar, for patience

• Hyacinth, for spring

• Sweet pudding, for fertility

• Sprouts, for rebirth

• Coins, for prosperity

The tables in my family also have mirrors, representing a look into the future, and goldfish (real, or the snack), representing life.

Or include something else to nibble on. All that cleaning can make a person hungry.

It’s Monday — get your haft sin table ready.

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