4 minute read
New York's Stairway to Heaven
from PARADOX
by WomanScape
By: Rose McInerney
As travel articles go, this one’s a rock and roll, New York style, ode to the moving, pulsating, ever-electric New York City. It’s where anything is possible and and all that glitters is gold in America’s Big Apple and home to more than 8 million people.
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Lucky for me, New York is my backyard playground. It has been for nearly 20 years, and is a short train-ride from Connecticut. When the kids were growing up, we loved Broadway plays and inventive restaurants. So I was understandably excited to learn about this latest addition to New York’s landscape – a $25 billion Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project that opened in March of 2019.
This massive, mixed-use, private real estate space is a complex consisting of four skyscraper residences built to house more than 125,000 residents. There’s a seven-story shopping mall and crazy-looking cultural center with a massive white bubble ceiling. Aptly named the Shed, it is strange with sporty, oversized side-wheels that suggest it might roll past the West Side Highway and billow into the Hudson River.
This mega-neighborhood is a city within a city, with a population larger than West Palm Beach Florida or Green Bay Wisconsin. Rising up from the middle is a 150 foot, honeycomb-shaped, copper structure. Maybe a contemporary-cousin to the ancient vestal virgins or Lady Liberty?
For now, she is the vision of British designer Thomas Heatherwick who aptly named her “Vessel”. The sculpture is an homage to the people of New York with its open-air architecture. It invites communion and shared ownership.
There’s even an official website for suggesting and voting on a name for the Vessel. The leading contender is “The Shawrama”, a cone-shaped Middle Eastern meat sold by street vendors.
I purchased my open ticket for $10 ahead of my visit, so I could skip the lines and tackle the 16 story-stairway (154 flights in total), 2,500 steps, and 80 landings after lunch.
When I started my trek up, it felt easy and roomy despite the many groups of families and friends traveling up or down, or across the circular pathway.
Lifting my arms ever-so gently, I took in the sights and welcomed a cool breeze.
The air smelled like freedom from the sweltering summer heat and the dead space between the city skyscrapers.
Excited children scrambled under the watchful eyes of parents who seemed as taken as I was with the views.
Like worker bees in a hive, everyone was bent on moving higher and getting to the top.
The steps are smartly designed to gradually be flatter and shorter in height.
Confidence and energy are buoyed, which made the climb seem much easier than anticipated. Thankfully, I took time to stop and look out, and I soon found myself humming the Stairway to Heaven song.
From the top, you could see the rows of trains in the bus yard to the west, a swimming pool in the sky to the north,
and a large garden area and water fountain taking shape in the east.
I was saddened by the swarm of people going into the Neiman Marcus store next door to the Vessel until I remembered where I was.
In the silence in my heart and this peaceful getaway, I heard the winds as they blew my hair on its end and made a wild fool of me. But I sucked them in and instinctively turned to the south, towards Battery Park and the land where the Twin Towers once stood.
“Yes there are two paths you can go by in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”
I liked this garden of steel with its big blocks and pieces forged in Montfalcone, Italy. Each was shipped to New York and floated down the
Hudson River to be reassembled in the Yards.
They are, like the Vessel, an extension and collection of each other.
The Vessel starts where the High Line ends, stretching the 2 km path of reimaged railroad ties and a nature walk filled with wildflowers, trees and popup refreshments.
The city keeps on moving, moving, moving. And, my “head is humming and won’t let go.” When I “listen very hard, [I know] she’s buying the stairway to heaven.”
New York doesn’t care that the Vessel costs between $150-200 million. It is public art. Art matters and it belongs to everyone.
The owners of the redevelopment project learned that when they tried to tell people they couldn’t take photos of the Vessel. They lost this battle when the people won the right to be and make memories in this public space.
Note: The Vessel in New York City at 34th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue.
Play Led Zepplin’s Stairway to Heaven song before you go, especially the Lincoln Memorial version performed by Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart in 2012 has 14 million views.
There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold And she’s buying a stairway to heaven. When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.
