The Vessel, the spiraling staircase at Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s Far West Side, was closed to visitors on Tuesday, a day after a 21-year-old man jumped to his death in the third suicide in less than a year.
It was unclear when the 150-foot structure, the vast development’s centerpiece, would reopen to the public.
— The New York Times
According to the NYT, the Vessel sculpture at Hudson Yards, which opened in March 2019, will remain closed "until further notice."
14 Comments
It was only a matter of time :(
Makes sense--your last view being a bunch of shitty luxury condos. Nothing life-affirming. Most depressing place on earth.
I wonder if they'll do anything about it. ~20 a year at the golden gate and they won't put up barriers or anything because it's an Icon.
That's not exactly true. It IS a boondoggle, but they're in the works.
They stopped officially counting to discourage jumpers about 25 years ago... About 600 people have jumped since then... they were "in the works" then.
People jumping off a piece of critical infrastructure built with a real purpose is much different than people jumping off a useless bauble some billionaire commissioned. All things must be weighed in relation to the benefits they bring society.
With how litigious society is now, I'm surprised they didn't put 10ft barriers on the upper levels.
This thing never should have made it out of the Minecraft phase.
$150M of useless stair that can't even be used to host events. A mere large scale sculpture. Yet people see it as some miracle. Well, I can't afford the multi million luxury condos nearby. So I am not the target audience. When I can, I probably will be fine with using $150M on that thing. And seriously how is that thing $150M. Not even a building of that scale cost $150M.
Probably the engineering, transportation from Italy , and the PVDF (?) treatment used to get Heatherwick's bronzy effect all added up.
I’m no prophet, but on one thread that I can’t find where we made up names for this thing I believe I called it “assisted suicide”.
Also this:
“x-jla
I embrace the spirit of the vessel. I think it’s the only logical way cities will survive. Tourism, spectacle, entertainment...The actual design imo is very underwhelming. I’m not climbing a fake shawarma unless there is some real shawarma and a cold beer waiting
at the top.”
If there were real beer and hot shawarma at the top this would be less of a problem. I'm serious though, if they stationed food vendors at the top less people would jump.
A bridge at the top leading to the mall next door would have been a good idea. The extra foot traffic might have helped the mall not be the complete business failure it is shaping up to be.
Use it as a cage for giant tomatoes and opossum habitat.
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