Manhattan’s Hudson Yards Closes Iconic Building After Fourth Suicide, Developer Mulls Permanent Closure
30th July 2021
The Vessel at Hudson Yards in Manhattan has been closed again after a 14-year-old boy jumped off the elaborate honeycomb-like structure that rises 16 stories Thursday afternoon. The teen’s death is the fourth suicide in 18 months since installation. The billionaire property developer behind the public sculpture is contemplating a permanent closure.
The New York City Police Department confirmed a 14-year-old boy jumped off the 150-foot set of spiraling staircases Thursday afternoon, just before 1300 local time, according to NBC News.
If you build it, they will come.
… our thoughts are with the family of the young person who lost their life.
They didn’t ‘lose their life’. They threw it away. You might want to ask Why?
July 31st, 2021 at 02:48
When I worked in downtown Houston, there was a hotel nearby with a huge atrium. For some reason, it became a suicide hot spot. Often the person committing suicide would call the front desk to let them know before they jumped, which just sort of made it more gruesome. The hotel had a page they would put out like, “Mr. Black, call extension 14”, which meant the staff was to get to level 14 ASAP and try to stop the suicide. They also started giving guests with local addresses rooms on the lowest floors.
At my first job after college, we had a couple of technicians who could machine just about anything. I needed some metal spacers for something I was working on and they cut some from these huge sheets of brass in the back of the shop. I asked about the brass and they told me that there was a huge brass sculpture hanging in the aforementioned hotel. (Apparently the company I worked for had some financial interest in the hotel.) One night it crashed to the floor. Luckily, nobody was hurt. The pieces were sent to our lab to see if they could figure out why it fell. Turned out the guy who made it didn’t do a very good job on the math regarding what it would take to hold such a heavy piece in the air. It was never rebuilt, and they used the scrap for making little projects for many years.