Written by Jaden Parker
On the car ride to Hudson Yards—where a majority of the stuff I wanted to see is located—my cab driver, as New York cabbies do, gave me insight on all the places I wanted to visit. Here is what he had to say. “Under all the high rises, they have all the trains stored underground. That’s why it’s called Hudson Yards. The Vessel, the building you wanna see, is closed right now. Two people jumped off. They eventually reopened it where you could only go up with a companion. But then a 14-year-old jumped off with his parents. So now it’s just architecture. Wanna know how much they spent on Little Island? $42 million. I think it’s a waste of money. The Edge. You should check that out. It’s the tallest balcony in the western hemisphere. Part of the floor is transparent.” I thanked him for his insight, tipped him, and exited the car.
I waddled around the premises because I was extremely lost and overwhelmed, but I eventually found the building with “The Shed” plastered on its glass. Before taking some photos, I had a bite to eat at Backyard Bites. If I’d had enough money, I probably would have had a bite to eat from each one, but I settled on a delicious burger with a lemonade—because there was no ice cream or ice for slushies on that extremely hot day! What was nice was that I wanted to see The Vessel, The Shed, and The High Line, so I got to hit all of those spots in one go. What wasn’t nice was that I had no sense of distance and decided to walk all the way to Little Island from The High Line, but that’s for a later story.
The Shed, which is actually the Bloomberg Building with the really cool outer shell on it, was designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the Rockwell Group. They proposed their design in 2011 and finished construction in 2019. That aforementioned “really cool outer shell” actually moves to adapt to artists’ visions. (Check out the cool video here to see what I mean.) It has galleries, an adorable plaza, a theater, and various rehearsal spaces, like the Tisch Skylights and Lab.
I didn’t get a chance to go inside as they were setting up for their fancy Mirror Ball, a benefit for The Shed, but I did enjoy sitting in the plaza where their first commissioned visual art is featured. The paved stones spelling out “IN FRONT OF ITSELF” were done by Lawrence Weiner. That “really cool outer shell” is made of Teflon-based polymer that looks like soft clouds—or cookies that baked too close together as I thought when I saw it in person. When the shell moves forward, everything inside stays warm because the polymer is thermally insulating. It can also withstand hurricane-force winds!
It’s a giant building, and I definitely recommend you checking it out the next time you’re near Hudson Yards in NYC. Our next stop will be the Queensboro Bridge.
