New York’s Eiffel Tower (“Vessel” at Hudson Yards)

The Hudson Yards development project on the west side of Manhattan (along the Hudson River) had long planned an iconic sculpture to symbolize the project and the city. “Developer Says $100 Million Sculpture At Hudson Yards Will Be ‘New York’s Eiffel Tower’” by Mark Maurer of The Real Deal was published on Business Insider on August 20, 2013.
 
The plans for the sculpture (to be completed in 2018) were presented to the public in September 2016. English designer Thomas Heatherwick, of Nelseon Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, presented ‘The Vessel”—a mammoth, beehive-like sculpture of stairs. The sculpture was frequently presented as “New York’s Eiffel Tower.”
 
Coney Island’s Parachute Jump has been called “Brooklyn’s Eiffel Tower.”
   
   
Wikipedia: Hudson Yards, Manhattan
Hudson Yards is a large-scale redevelopment project that is jointly planned, funded and constructed by the City of New York, the State of New York, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to encourage development along the Hudson River in Manhattan, New York City. The project includes a rezoning of the Far West Side, an extension of the New York City Subway’s 7 <7>

trains to the area’s eponymous subway station at 11th Avenue, and a renovation of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
 
Wikipedia: Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower (/ˈaɪfəl ˈtaʊər/ eye-fəl towr; French: Tour Eiffel, pronounced: [tuʁ‿ɛfɛl]) is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
 
Constructed in 1889 as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.
     
Business Insider
Developer Says $100 Million Sculpture At Hudson Yards Will Be ‘New York’s Eiffel Tower’
Mark Maurer, The Real Deal
Aug. 30, 2013, 12:51 PM
Related Companies founder Stephen Ross is predicting that a still-to-be-designed sculpture at Hudson Yards will be New York’s Eiffel Tower and more symbolic than the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center — and will be key in making his megaproject “the new heart” of the city.
(...)
“This sculpture will be the greatest tourist attraction in New York,” Ross told the magazine. “It will be more than the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, but 365 days a year. It will be to this city what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.”
 
Time Out New York
Developer claims Hudson Yards sculpture will be New York’s “Eiffel Tower”
By Jonathan Millstein
Posted: Wednesday May 4 2016, 4:54pm
Especially considering what an eye sore it was to many Parisian people when it was first built, how it was saved from demolition by the realization that it could be used as a radiotelegraph station and its current success as a late-in-life tchotchke.
 
However, according to Related Cos. Chairman Stephen Ross, a new sculpture to be erected in the Hudson Yards mega-development “will become to New York what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.”
     
Curbed—New York
First look at Hudson Yards’s enormous, interactive ‘public landmark’
The piece, called Vessel, is designed by Thomas Heatherwick and is basically an enormous set of stairs
BY AMY PLITT @PLITTER SEP 14, 2016, 2:06P
(...)
The Vessel (a temporary name, with a permanent one TK) is the creation of British designer Thomas Heatherwick, who won the bid for the sculpture in 2013. It will sit at the center of a five-acre public park, with a design by Nelseon Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, and is intended, per Heatherwick, to “lift people up to be more visible and enjoy new views and perspectives of each other.”
 
Time Out New York
Final design unveiled for what’s being called New York’s Eiffel Tower
By Howard Halle
Posted: Wednesday September 14 2016, 3:14pm
It’s being described as the Stairs To Nowhere and nicknamed the social climber, but if you ask us, it looks like a set of ribs (human not pork). The thing in question? The much ballyhooed “Eiffel Tower” of Hudson Yards, the permanent public art centerpiece of the enormous development rising on the Far West Side. As reported by The New York Times and Design Boom, the project is expected to be completed in 2018 as the anchor for a five-acre plaza and garden.
   
CNN.com
Could this be New York’s Eiffel Tower?
By Tiffany Ap, CNN
Updated 0734 GMT (1534 HKT) September 15, 2016
(...)
Come 2018, however, there may be a new defining landmark for the city.
 
The ambitious design of “Vessel”, by architecture firm Heatherwick Studio—who was responsible for the striking UK pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo—was unveiled Wednesday.
 
An elaborate beehive-like network of stairs, featuring a mile’s worth of pathways, it will rise from a public plaza and stand 150 feet (46 meters) tall.
 
Untapped Cities—New York
New York’s Eiffel Tower: 16-Story Sculpture for Hudson Yards to Come in 2018
09/15/2016 at 12:30 pm
Posted In Architecture, New York, News
by susan xu
Just when you thought New York City couldn’t possibly make room for another superstructure, talk about a beehive-like public installation in Hudson Yards reveals that the city’s iconic skyline will soon welcome another addition. The plan for the 16-story, £114 million sculpture, dubbed “New York’s Eiffel Tower,” was revealed by British architect, Thomas Heatherwick, on Wednesday.
 
“Vessel,” as the structure is called, will become the permanent centerpiece of the Hudson Yards’ Public Square and Gardens, which will eventually connect Hudson Yards to the High Line. The project is part of a larger Hudson Yards development initiative, consisting of 16 skyscrapers on the West Side.