After the Fourth Suicide in 18 Months, the Vessel in N.Y.C. Might Close Permanently

The Vessel, a new and popular tourist attraction in New York City, may close for good after the attraction continued to receive attention for the wrong reason, namely four suicides in the past year and a half.

On Thursday, a 14-year-old boy, in front of his entire family, leapt to his death from the Vessel.

The attraction is located in Hudson Yards, a shiny new neighborhood and destination in New York City that rises above a dozen acres (five hectares) of rail yard in Manhattan’s West 30s.  Hudson Yards is the largest development of this magnitude since the opening of Rockefeller Center in the 1930s.

The Vessel itself is a 150-foot (46-meter) high, $200 million stairway to nowhere, sheathed in copper-clad steel.

Community members have repeatedly called on the developers of Hudson Yards to install higher barriers on the walkways and have questioned the effectiveness of the structure’s suicide-prevention methods.

Following two suicides within the span of a month in January, the Vessel closed and then reopened in May.  The Related Companies, which developed Hudson Yards, did not raise the height of the barriers currently in place before it reopened, however.

Stephen Ross, the chairman of the Related Companies, said in an interview with the blog the Daily Beast that the art installation might be closed permanently following the fourth tragedy.

“We thought we had covered everything,” he said.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)