Tourists once again climbed the steps of NYC’s beehive-shaped Vessel sculpture after it reopened Monday with another safety retrofit aimed at decreasing the risk of suicides like the ones that forced closures, most recently in 2021.
Around 75 visitors had bought tickets and lined up to enter the metallic honeycomb design as it opened Monday morning. Within minutes, they passed through a security checkpoint and buzzed about the stairways and vista platforms, the highest of which is around 150 feet (45 meters). Flexible netting allowed visitors to stick out their phones, but not their bodies, to capture views of the sculpture’s interior and the surrounding cityscape.
“The pictures you can take from downstairs and upstairs,…