Hudson Yards Vessel to reopen three years after spate of deaths

The Vessel at Hudson Yards will reopen later this year, it was announced on Friday, three years after it was shuttered following a spate of suicides.

The honeycombed installation opened in March 2019 as the centerpiece of the new Hudson Yards neighborhood in Midtown Manhattan. But it quickly gained notoriety after several visitors took their own lives by jumping from the 150-foot structure.

A Hudson Yards spokesperson said Friday they have developed a plan with designer Thomas Heatherwick and Heatherwick Studio to install floor-to-ceiling mesh on the Vessel “while also preserving the unique experience that has drawn millions of visitors from around the globe.”

“We look forward to welcoming visitors back to Vessel later this year,” they said, though they did not provide an exact timeline.

Developed by real estate company Related Companies, the Vessel cost a whopping $200 million to build and opened to largely mixed reviews. It has 154 interconnected flights of stairs with 80 landings and nearly 2,500 individual steps.

While the first two levels will be fully open, only sections of the upper levels with the new steel mesh retrofits will be publicly accessible, according to the Hudson Yards spokesperson. The topmost level, which cannot accommodate the mesh, will remain closed to the public.

The spokesperson said the mesh has been designed in such a way that it can withstand outdoor elements and any attempts to cut or remove it, while keeping views intact.

Four people have reportedly died by suicide at the Vessel since it opened: a 19-year old New Jersey man in February 2020; a 24-year old Brooklyn woman in December 2020; a 21-year-old Texas man less than a month later in January 2021; and a 14-year-old boy that July.

The Vessel has remained closed since the fourth incident.