Stephen Ross, the 77-year-old billionaire property developer and the owner of the Miami Dolphins, told The New Yorker about the moment when he decided that the plaza of one of his projects, Hudson Yards — a cluster of towers on Manhattan’s West Side — needed something truly magnificent at the center. It wanted it to be “big” and “monumental.” Soon after, he met with Thomas Heatherwick, the acclaimed British designer of ingenious, though sometimes unworkable, things. Ross was impressed with Heatherwick’s powerpoint presentation and the two decided to work together. The New Yorker writes that the sculpture commissioned from Heatherwick is “a copper-colored, urn-shaped lattice of a hundred and fifty-four staircases and eighty landings. It looked like scaffolding that had been readied for the construction of a hundred-and-fifty-foot head of Ozymandias.” For the moment, it is called “Vessel,” but Ross hopes the public will give it a nickname. Starting sometime next year, the piece will be open to the public via free, timed-entry tickets. The cost exceeds a hundred and fifty million dollars, but in Ross’s mind, it’s worth it because the sculpture will become “the icon for New York” just like the Eiffel Tower for Paris. The New Yorker writes that it will fit nicely in an Instagram photograph.
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