Four people have killed themselves at Hudson Yards within 18 months of each other. In the exact same place. In the exact same way. How is that for an icebreaker? Now closed indefinitely, The Vessel joins a global collection of suicidal landmarks.

What is the purpose of The Vessel? Enclosed by multi-million dollar penthouses, corporate headquarters, and luxury retail, it symbolizes an ascending capitalism trophy with waist-high barriers mostly inaccessible to those with mobility limitations.

Peter DeSalvo, 19. Yocheved Gourarie, 24. Franklin Washington, 21. Unnamed, 14. I have been there, on the edge of a 100 foot descent. No judgement toward these four humans or the natural reactive human behavior of Hudson Yards management.

150 feet high. 2,500 stairs. 154 interconnected staircases. 80 platforms.

A honeycomb-shaped attraction funded by $200M of private equity.

Designer Thomas Heatherwick and Related Founder Stephen Ross.

Private money equals public exclusion. What a beautiful destruction.

Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco averages 30 suicides each year.

Prevention measures to be completed in 2023 including steel netting.

Psychedelics

This is where I am supposed to provide the phone number for a suicide prevention hotline, the stereotypical ritual. Instead I am going deeper with spoken word. After all, there is a reason why lyrics save more lives than anonymity on a telephone.

What if we all became our own therapist? Say, every month we visit a setting so profound it obligates us to face problems head on and deliberately. Would this create the greatest accountability and push us toward productive self-growth?

Who knows you better than you? Who knows me better than me? Perhaps we have been trained as a species that communicating with strangers while consuming artificial medicines leads to freedom. Or perhaps that heroic dose just expanded my mind.