The Vessel: a perfect symbol for the grifter capitalism of New York City's privatized Hudson Yards "neighborhood"

I did not know this existed. Now that I know, I can’t say if my life has been improved by the knowledge, or damaged.

I’m trying to picture billionaires climbing this thing, like greedy little hamsters in a Habitrail.

It kinda reminds me of the part in Good Omens, where it was described that the highway overpasses were designed so that each car that passed through them was a prayer to Satan. Only for this, the deity is Mammon.

There’s also a kind of horrible beauty in them claiming all rights to your experience of this monstrosity. If only there was some way to charge them by each step they take… the closer they get to the top, the more each step costs. Only the most worthy can make it to the top.

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I think we know which church would split the bill on a structure like that

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endless%20staircase

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The question is, which one wouldn’t?

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Oh no, it’s not for the plutocrats who live and work in this enclave to climb; instead, they’ll observe from their hermetically sealed towers as a constant stream of rubes re-enact the striving and endless climb to nowhere that is the dance of the American temporarily embarrassed millionaire. And they’ll laugh and laugh and laugh …

In a spin on the Facebook business model, if you’re not a museum patron, you’re part of the exhibit.

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How about a plank, and someone to hold the traditional encouragement sabre? I’m sure there would be lots of folks eager to lend a hand and give the reluctant some incentive! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…

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Ahhhh. That makes a bit more sense. Horrible, horrible, sense. Thank you for clearing up my misconception.

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Once people realise they’ve been had, though, there’s this observation made by Daniel Handler during the Occupy protests:

Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.

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And yet, I remember a video of that exact thing happening during the Occupy Wall Street movement.

It’s almost been eight years, and I’m pretty sure their ending is (so far) still happy.

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I rather like an exotic stair climb, personally.

One would think that if there was a bubble in the progress of actually bursting, such projects would be well and truly kaput by now.

Maybe this is just going to turn out like so many old Olympic venues – shoddily constructed and swiftly abandoned amid safety concerns.

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Aside from being impractical a/f, the design is fucking hideous:

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It would be interesting to see how it crumpled when Godzilla step on it. From that angle it looks like some kind of giant shock absorber.

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From that angle, it looks like a hornet’s ass. Apt.

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That, or the perfect place for the omnipresent space-laser to land…

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Obviously the copyright cockroaches learned from the Chicago Bean and adapted.

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our malevolent shawarma

sounds like the name of a new-age cult church.

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Obligs:

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“Like” is a strong word here. I have some experience of real estate developers being forced to commission public artworks (either by planning authorities or by a vague notion that it’s required for marketing purposes), and you sometimes see a remarkable level of contempt for the actual art itself. This one is quite expensive, so the executives probably pretend to love it for commercial reasons, but the whole reason you hire Heatherwick is to ensure that you don’t have to enthusiastically justify the result to everyone (because he will do that).

I did smirk at the NYT critic referring to him as “billionaire whisperer Thomas Heatherwick”, although I think it’s slightly unfair for the architecture world to be quite so mean to him, given that he mostly doesn’t pretend to be an architect, and a lot of real architects have no business attacking anyone for being a pretentious whore.

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