Stair Wars

When the Vessel reopened in October 2024 following a string of suicides, access to its pinnacle was permanently sealed off. Annoyed tourists also complained about safety netting installed to deter jumping; evidently, the reticulated mesh spoiled views of the Hudson River, City Pickle courts, and an Aritzia boutique. But something even more exercising waited for me on the penultimate level: resistance training.

The Vessel Run is an Equinox-branded, fifty-seven-dollar high-intensity interval training class set in Thomas Heatherwick’s sixteen-story death stair in the imperial core of Hudson Yards. It is ridiculous but harder than it looks, even for a runner like me. Things started at grade, where Waz, our impossibly bronzed British leader, stood athwart a radioactive-blue ring light and introduced the “uniquely vertical workout” we were to endure over the next hour. Our objective: to go up and down the step well’s irregular staircases as many times as possible before the end of a six-minute interval. “Some of you will make it, others may not,” Waz said, apparently unaw…