Vessel (structure)
structure in New York City
Vessel is a 16-story, 150-foot-tall (46 m) structure of connected staircases in the 5-acre (2.0 ha) Hudson Yards Public Square of Hudson Yards in Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the elaborate honeycomb-like structure consists of 154 flights of stairs, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings for visitors to climb. Funded by Hudson Yards developer Related Companies, its final cost was estimated at $200 million.
The concept of Vessel was publicly presented on September 14, 2016, with construction starting in April 2017, its pieces manufactured in Italy and shipped to the United States. Vessel topped out in December 2017 with the installation of its highest piece, and opened to the public on March 15, 2019. At the time of its opening, Vessel was noted for its sensitive siting within Hudson Yards with points of criticism focusing on its overall extravagance, restrictive copyright photography policy and lack of full accessibility, the latter two issues subsequently resolved.
In response to suicides at the Vessel and installations initially of netting and later glass barriers, the venue underwent a series of closings and reopenings, beginning with a closure January 2021, then an indefinite closing, a reopening in May 2021, and indefinite closure two months later — and a reopening in October 2024 following the installation of glass safety barriers.
Description
Structure
Vessel is a 16-story, 150-foot-tall (46 m) structure of connected staircases among the buildings of Hudson Yards, located in the 5-acre (2.0 ha) Hudson Yards Public Square. Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, Vessel has 154 flights, 2,500 steps, and 80 landings, with the total length of the stairs exceeding 1 mile (1.6 km). The copper-clad steps, arranged like a jungle gym and modeled after Indian stepwells, can hold 1,000 people at a time.
“Vessel (structure)” enters the record as structure in New York City. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vessel, structure and York can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Vessel (structure)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Vessel, structure and York provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q27988215. Authority coordinates are 40.754, -74.002. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vessel (structure)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.