Vessel - Climbable sculpture in Hudson Yards closed in 2021 after four people died by suicide

In the summer of 2021 I spent a week in NYC and visited this sculpture just by chance as it was down the street from my hotel and was near MSG. They were having a big event and the entrance was closed, which I thought at the time was due to the event, only now am I discovering the actual reason.

While I understand the premise of restricting access to mitigate suicides, this seems to be a solution to a symptom and mostly a public perception stop gap. This does not prevent suicide to any significant degree.

If a structure is built for recreation, as a kind of thought exercise, and novel touristic destination and then it’s used as a tool of self destruction by a few people suffering from mental illness, maybe the actual solution is to stop investing in constructing “art” pieces and start investing in solving why someone would want to jump off your sculpture to begin with. After all art is a societies expression of success when all other necessary needs are met, otherwise your art is exploitation.