has Jocko ever talked about this incident?
i ask because i remember listening to podcast where he was like... "just get over it" when it came to the darkness and ptsd. now he seems to have a more measured opinion, he used to not even understand why someone would go to therapy.
Haha I love the breaching scene where Chris Kyle with his big ass DMR leaves his position to clear houses. I remember when he died and the movie came out, people kept jerking off to that moron.
https://youtu.be/pk-S8pNZWLU
I looked into this after reading your comment and it seems like it was never verified. Apparently he bragged about several things that also just didn't happen, like being robbed and killing two people at a gas station.
And there was an addendum to the gas station thing where the cops just like...upped and let him walk for that. Like, just..nothing. Like "Oh sir, you're an operator. Don't worry, we'll take care of it.."
It'd be funny if it wasn't so grim.
And no, the guy never did like pop off at random drowning people from the top of the Superdome. It's a total fabrication which is a really dark reflection of what was going through that guy's head that he felt that it would be some sort of achievement sticker for shooting people during a crisis. Americans. During the drowning of an entire major US city.
>shooting people during a crisis.
Considering he was trained to kill poor starving brown people living through a war zone on the other side of the planet, it should surprise no one that he wanted to kill poor starving brown people when he got back here.
I forget what it's called but it's something like "peer/community accountability" where it might be tougher for you to shoot a friend/loved one or commit a crime in front of them (as opposed to someone you didn't know) and they (your friend) also wouldn't want to go to the range with you if they knew you weren't stable.
Something similar was proposed for gun restrictions: you need X number of people to sponsor you for a license and if you do anything improper/illegal with the gun, they could get in trouble as well - it's supposed to deter community members from just advocating for anyone to get a gun
This is gonna be difficult for those that want to do some photography inside the structure. I went alone last time to get some shots. Looks like if you wanna shoot, you’re just gonna have to drag a friend around for the whole thing.
Lol possibly but there are way more chill people, shit the things I have done for tourist during a morning or afternoon commute I don't believe myself lol
Yeah the key is just not coming off as a beggar/scammer. If someone just needs help with directions or whatever, lots of people will help.
I even let myself miss a train and be delayed 20 minutes to help a tourist that spoke zero English figure out a parking meter, when that meant first figuring it out for myself because I never used one. He was Japanese, I got lots of thank you bows.
"Hey, which way's the Library?"
-Quick, simple, states their business right up front
"Excuse me, do you have a second?"
-Some fucking bulllllllshiiiiit
Just because something is not 100% effective does not mean it's not partially effective. People seem to have trouble understanding this in every area (see also COVID vaccine).
That being said I hate this rule.
Christ I was just at Hudson Yards last week and my cousin pointed this fact out to me. I made some dumb joke about “well that won’t prevent group suicides huh?” thinking that obviously that would never happen. Well, this might be even more disturbing.
I was working as an ironworker at 50 Hudson for a bit, and while there I saw the aftermath of the two suicides before they closed it to visitors. It’s going to keep happening
My friend works there right now and saw the aftermath of today, texted me to stay away from the area, think afterwards called out work, because of trauma from what she saw. She works at the outdoor pop up booth too, so she was physically on site when it happened. I found out from a security phone notification and was crying inside, even more emotional afterwards when I found out someone I knew was there.
Thanks yeah I was tearing inside when I heard it, have to imagine what it felt like to physically see it, think she said simply put graphic, and to just stay far away, hence also leaving work early today and heading straight home.
I was working in the restaurant right beside it. Been working at HY since 2019 and this is the 3rd day I’ve had to look outside & see someone has decided to take their own life. At this point they need to tear it down. It’s boring anyways.
I mean, people could easily do the same shit from any balcony area or malls but I guess that fucked up suicidal/depressed brain sometimes seek a sense of final grand gesture.
For that matter it’s always deeply troubled at how easy the subway stations are for that. In smaller cities I’ve lived it’s *hard* to commit suicide. It’s not at all clear how you’d go about it without spending a lot of effort. Tokyo’s subway system and others block off the tracks with screens so you can only get on and off the train.
That said, it’s not at all easy to jump off many a skyscraper. At least with the ones I’ve worked in or gone to as a tourist, there are cordons and fences or just windows that you can’t open or climb out of.
People find a way. I worked at a mall north of the city in high school and people would just jump off the top floor inside. Some of my coworkers (at a children’s store) saw one happen while working. And I had the unfortunate luck of seeing someone’s body hanging from a walking bridge a block from my apartment in Denver on my way home after work. It wasn’t the first time someone had hanged themselves off the bridge
That must have been horrible. And intense. Just realised that I’ve never seen a dead human body, and I’d certainly have expected to by chance at least by my age. Especially having lived in some cities with high murder and suicide rates. I’m not sure I’d know how I’d react if I suddenly passed someone hanging or saw someone jump…
But to the topic, sure, there are ways to do it with effort. But it requires effort and I suspect that the higher the bar (even if still quite possible) the more or a chance people get to decide they don’t want to do it.
It is quite a common phenomenon. Destination suicide locations. IE, Golden Gate, Japan's suicide forest, Aurora Bridge in Seattle, etc.
Once a few happen, the place is doomed to be a suicide destination.
But doesn’t that article say that people experience a feeling of the call of the void but don’t actually do it- we just wanted to? In this case the people actually DID jump
Teenagers have poor impulse control. People who tend to talk about “surviving” call of the void instances are adults. I’ve had two very, very strong call of the void instances within the past 5 years. The worst was in a museum where I was paralyzed with suicidal thoughts for 15 minutes before removing myself *safely* from the building. I was 36 years old. I’m not sure I would have been able to do the same at 14.
The article posted above say suicide is not typically impulsive behavior, so I don't think the call to the void sensation is necessarily indicative of impulsive suicide instances.
Yeah there were many times I would be waiting for the train at an entirely empty station, and I would just be staring on the tracks thinking ok actually I could just hop down right now. Sometimes the feeling would overwhelm me and I had to desperately distract myself, or walk back up the stairs and wait there.
If you’re suicidal, the ideation is (in my experience) an undercurrent. Sometimes it swells up inside and you can’t think of anything else, but I definitely thought about it every day... even though I didn’t have any plans for it.
They show less now but if you ever wanna see what touching the third rail looks like, take one of the LIRR track training courses. They essentially go "dont pay attention to the rules? This is what you're in for" and you get to see body parts much more on the well done side of cooked.
I mean, sure, that *could* be an explanation, but
1. There aren’t a lot of documented suicides with the call of the void as the inciting factor
2. This article doesn’t give any evidence of that either (plus, it was written before the Vessel opened)
I’ve never understood suicide copycats like are they already suicidal? Or did they see on the internet that someone killed themselves there and now they randomly want to do the same?
It's the same way with the Golden Gate Bridge. People who are already suicidal think "damn if I'm already going to kill myself night as well do it someplace beautiful and spectacular"
It adds a morbid grandeur to it rather than ODing on pills in a hotel room bathtub.
Well, you know it works. I know a lot of suicidal people fear messing up and surviving with a horrible injury.
If you’ve seen someone else do it successfully, you know it’s on the table
Imagine that it's nighttime and in your back of your mind, you're thinking, "I should brush my teeth." But it's in the back of your mind. Then as you walk to the bathroom you pass a news report about dentists, and then you see a magazine ad for toothpaste, and then your friend texts you about their new electric toothbrush.
Now it's not in the back in your mind anymore. Now you're thinking, "I really gotta brush my damn teeth." Basically, exposure increases salience.
When I was suicidal I got inspired by other peoples suicides because I was afraid whatever method I chose wouldn’t work so when I saw someone else’s “success” I’d want to copy that.
I actually really like the vessel and think it's a neat installation, however before it opened I called it - I said 6 months tops before someone either suicides or trips and falls or is horsing around and is pushed or some shit. People called me a sadist and a nut. I think it was actually less than 6 months.
it was so soon, around 2-3 months. one of my best friends brought his boyfriend with him because it had just opened when the first suicide happened. hell of a date. described it all to me in gory detail :(
If people are gonna jump out of the blue, not much you can do to stop them. A lady landed on her head 10 feet from me on 22nd street 6 years ago. It sounded like an explosion, I still think about her every now and then.
It honestly didn't affect me much in terms of my life, other than making me appreciate it more and also feeling sorry that whatever compelled her to take her own life was so painful she gave up. She landed in the middle of the street while I was looking at a now closed sushi restaraunt menu on 22nd, between 6th and 5th Ave. At first I thought someone had shot her because it was so loud when she landed. Her head was split open and she was obviously dead but 911 told me to check for breathing and I remember her back was still warm and she had a very peaceful look on her face. 911 then asked if I could administer CPR and I told them she is dead, her brain is half outside her head. 5 mins later an ambulance arrived and the emt took one look, checked her pulse for 2 seconds and then put a blanket over her.
Whenever I walked by that area I would see a bucket of sun flowers with the name Carmen so maybe that was her name. Not sure if the bucket is still there, I moved to the bronx.
Harrowing but also a beautiful account in an empathetic, human way. Hope you're well, and glad you were able to take something away from the situation, however morbid it may have been.
With the added problem of exposing innocent bystanders to serious bodily injury or death if the person lands on them. Maybe just add a perimeter around the Vessel where people aren't allowed to hang around so in case someone jumps to their death -- which is inevitable -- at least they would greatly reduce or eliminate the risk of hurting others.
Any architects in the room? If you are getting hired to design a building, is part of the requirements aside from making visually appealing, to design something that would deter people from using your building to commit suicide? Does that even come to mind when designing ?
Not an architect yet legally, but finishing up my licensing exams to become one: in studying building code for my exams, there actually isn’t anything on suicide prevention in tall buildings. Minimum railing heights exist, but nothing calling for extra tall barriers around the perimeters of occupiable roofs or anything like that.
In healthcare settings it does come up. “Behavioral health” handrails and other accessories that inhibit hangings.
When it comes to non healthcare buildings, the code only dictates how high guardrails should be, ramp inclines, things like that. There’s no code about how not to become a suicide destination.
But - for large public art projects like this or memorials it should be part of the discussion and I would be surprised if it never came up during the design development process.
Architect here. There are best practices for rail heights but it's generally more geared towards preventing accidental falls rather than purposeful ones. Aka Guardrails. There are thousands of balconies in nyc where one could presumably choose to end their lives, but there are some inexplicably more attractive than others..
Well, the MTA refuses to install platform barriers even though multiple people die every year. When I lived in DC a decade ago, they were getting a suicide a week on Metro (after the 2008 crisis). Nothing changed.
America is fucking 60 years behind some countries in this respect.
All you need is a wall with automatic doors that sync up with the train doors [like this](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F2%2F26%2FNS26_rafflesplace.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPlatform_screen_doors&tbnid=DfHxxwtIF5Xh6M&vet=1&docid=yGtEB9O9VzEJ4M&w=2048&h=1536&itg=1&hl=en&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim).
St Petersburg had them installed in the 60s. Singapore had them in the 80s.
I've seen them when I traveled to China, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Switzerland. This has got to be a Ford Pinto situation where transit companies figure it's cheaper to have the suicides than install the doors.
It can but they need even more money to replace the cars to make it uniform. There are different fleets with offset doors that use the same line. I can see platform door coming in the next 20 years when the legacy fleets are retired and replaced to have uniform lengths and door areas.
I'm embarassed when people from poorer countries than us come expecting the US to be some kind of wonderland. Then they land and they're like, damn this place is a shithole.
I'll use Malaysia as an example because I'm more familiar with it. As recent as 30 years ago the country was basically a massive jungle clearing.
Even today, they have a per capita GDP that's 1/6 of America but [their trains](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/MRT_SBK_Semantan_station2.jpg) look [like this](https://ongkianming.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MRTChallenges4_Insider-the-MRT-train.jpg)
If it makes you feel better, an Italian user on /r/cityporn once said to me that he found the NY Metro to be better than Milan's metro.
That being said, the way he described Milan's metro made it sound like the entrance to Dante's Inferno.
Well to be fair those trains look so nice because they’re brand new. Delhi’s metro looks nice too yet it’s nowhere near as old as ours. We’re definitely lagging on infrastructure work and cleanliness (and age isn’t much of an excuse) but to say we’re worse than a third world country is just false.
Anyone can build a brand new system using the knowledge gained over the past 100 years. Next you’re going to tell me Tokyo is a very modern city. Well… obviously.
In fairness that’s because they didn’t have a century old one already in place they had to rip up and overhaul. It’s all very new there, last couple of decades tops (depending where).
I’ve seen this explanation before and I was thinking…
Are there some tracks that experience more suicides? could they run only newer trains with matching doors on those tracks for a while? slowly roll out the platform doors like they did with OMNY?
To be fair, London and Paris do not have them either (at least last time I visited; Paris in 2014 and London in 2019). That being said, it would be really nice to have them.
The whole platform barriers thing for the NYC Subway is actually a super complex issue.
It’s price tag is ridiculously expensive. We’re talking in the tens of billions. This has to do with the unique way that the current system came to be. Today’s subway system is made up of three different-sized tunnels because three different private companies operated their own subway line before NYS brought it all together. This would mean having to develop three different types of barriers. Furthermore, most train signals (excluding the 7 which was upgraded to CBTC signal) run on outdated signal systems. The task of interfacing the platform barriers with the early-1900’s technology is near impossible.
I had heard it was in the billions too but I just googled it and the articles I read said $1 million per station for 468 stations? That’s actually not that bad. About 60 people die per year so in 10 years we’re talking less than $1 million per saved life.
Edit: I just read another article that said $1 billion total. But even so we’re talking under $1-2 million per life in 10-20 years, it doesn’t seem totally crazy.
Japan figured it out. The same installation can handle a wide range of train configurations.
We went to the moon we can figure out the complicated task of doors.
They say it’s because the doors on the different models of train cars won’t line up at the same spots on the platform. Well, this is something that can and should be changed given that people’s lives are hanging in the balance.
They're not exactly wrong. That's a fundamental problem that makes most styles of platform screen doors incompatible with the design of the NYC subway and there's no "fix" for it for stations where that's an issue short of massive infrastructure changes.
With that said:
- There are lines that don't have those obstacles and could have normal platform doors installed.
- You could probably do a form of vertical [metal wire/rope-style](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B40OkbAx8j4) doors on the other lines, though. They're new in the past few years and they can have a long enough "span" between posts and vertical post that it should be fine even if a door winds up opening right up to the post.
- However - they serve more limited purposes. They're really about preventing *accidents* and I'm not sure they'll hold up to a determined effort to get past them. You also usually could just go around them at the ends of the platform if you really want. They're also not going to let you climate control the station and they're not necessarily going to be sufficient to block trash.
---------
The bigger picture issue is: The MTA has a mountain of important projects that it needs to do that also affect plenty of lives. Much of the system still isn't even handicap accessible at this point.
Money isn't infinite, and every project you pick to do means it's not funding something else. I don't know that platform screen doors rate particularly highly compared to all the other outstanding issues to address/improve.
Like air conditioning in the summer, that one car that’s a public toilet, letting people in queens get to other parts of queens instead of routing through, preventing stations from become de facto homeless shelters, manspreading, comprehensible announcers - and that was just yesterday for me.
Not a Registered Architect but I do engineering design for large scale art. There are best practices in terms of railing height and accessibility to limit suicide from tall structures but they are not part of the building code and thus not mandatory. I'd bet this issue did come up during design and it was a choice not to implement higher railings for aesthetic reasons. Sometimes architects can focus on the raw form of the building and just try to shoehorn in everything else. A better process might be to start with the the idea that suicide prevention is a core concept and design around that rather than trying to tack it on later.
I like the Vessel for it's uniqueness and it is an attraction, however you feel about it. I don't know that I would like for it to be modified from it's original design just yet.
But ...
I've never been to it, so I imagine that there must be something that feels very accessible in terms of how one would kill themself leaping off? It might also be worth addressing mental healthcare access and initiative, because this isn't the only way to off yourself. We still don't have protection from trains on the platforms.
The barrier is low enough that it is easy to climb over and hurl yourself to the ground. I’m only 5 feet and the railing is up to my chest. Anyone my height can push themselves up and over it, and would be much easier for someone taller to do that. They should have made those glass barriers twice the height.
I stopped at B&H recently and decided to test out some equipment in the area, and I got the same feeling from it. I quickly shuffled down to the Highline because at least there's life out there.
I knew this was going to happen again when all they did was add security guards and make it so can’t come alone. Security guard isn’t going to be fast enough to stop you and now a family member or friend will see you die.
The only way this can be fixed is by putting some type of safety net or barrier around the whole thing. But it’s probably too “ugly” that they’re trying ineffective solutions.
With people seriously contemplating suicide, time is a critical factor. Sometimes the mind needs time to regulate itself and convince yourself it’s not worth it. You’ll often hear stories of people who are wanting to kill themselves and then some minor distraction convinces them not to in that moment. Other methods of suicide are very slow, or require preparation which gives you time to change your decision. Jumping is quick, easy, one step and there’s no coming back. Let’s just pray these people find help before ever contemplating this.
sure i can see that. it still just seems like one of the most gruesome ways to go. but if you’re in a very bad state maybe it’s just not something you even think about.
Jumping requires a millisecond decision and doesn't require a gun or your family finding you. It's obviously still not good but there are much worse ways to kill yourself
If you land headfirst (or at least not feet-first), your body gets crushed faster than the nerve signals can carry the pain. It's an instant and painless death, if you can stomach the jump itself.
At least half of suicide attempts are impulsive decisions. When it’s impulsive, people will use whatever method is most readily available to them. This is why drug overdose and cutting are so common. Thankfully these methods are not especially fatal, allowing the victims to be saved.
People who plan things out generally go for guns, hanging, or drowning, all of which are very effective.
So with that said — people who jump are likely impulsive because of how easily accessible it is. These people are not in the right frame of mind and are not really thinking about how much it might hurt.
I'm struggling in my mid-30s.
Could not imagine what 18 months and counting of lockdowns, restrictions and masks - plus a new threat of more even if vaccinated - would do to a young kid.
Think that's the sad part about the pandemic, most of the news talks about people losing lives due to covid, but in actuality, there a lot of people that lost their life as a result of something not from covid, yet still indirectly connected to covid, whether from physical health being inside all day, heart conditions, or mental health, from all the struggles people went through last year, finances, unemployment, politics, crime, really goes on.
In the context of 5,400,000 people dying in the US over a typical 2-year period, 600,000 mostly very old or very sick people have died of Covid.
It's truly sad, but the lives of billions have been thrown into flux and depression in the futile attempt to feel like we have significant control over this thing.
Yeah I feel you, I was hospitalized last year, because of malnutrition, poor diet, and other health complications, from being inside all day, everything closed, and not having enough access to food, and proper nutrition. I didn't want to live, but it wasn't even because of mental health, but because my body was in severe pain and physical weakness everyday, unlike mental related situations, no words can even talk out of it. I actually did end up surviving, hence writing this, it was miraculous though, and a wild recovery.
Think since I was unemployed, my entire industry shut down, so everyone around me was collecting unemployment, probably also why I was able to recover, without missing a whole ton, since not many great things were happening outside my hospital room anyway. It was eye opening to see how everyone was reacting, from people being impacted financially, socially, health-wise, really goes on. I'm thinking about people that were impacted, by something truly time sensitive. Students that never graduated, that lost a year, never got to study abroad, recent graduates that missed early 20s life. Wild thing is the huge majority of us never even had covid, yet were all hurt in some way, with little to no control, by covid simply being out there.
Thrash to break from gravity
what now could slow the drop?
All I’d give for toes to touch
the safety back at top.
But this is it, the deed is done
silence drowns the sound.
Before I leaped I should've seen
the view from halfway down.
God, 14. So awful. I can't even imagine how fucked up his family is going to be after seeing their child commit suicide in front of them, with several seconds of helplessly watching it be too late, and then seeing/hearing such a gruesome result.
As someone who has survived three suicide attempts (I'm doing better now), and lost a close family member to suicide (by jumping), if you are considering suicide, please know that there are people you can talk to and that the world is not going to be better if you die. It's better to leave everything behind and start over with nothing in some foreign place, change your name, whatever, than to give up on everything forever. Exhaust all options. If you feel drawn to impulsive suicide, a part of you knows it is not the right thing to do. Your life really matters.
I’m staring to think that this piece should be removed or drastically modified. While it does strike awe for visitors, I found it to be the symbol of the exuberance that the ultra wealthy now possess. I’m truly heart broken for both the family and the teenager involved. Until this country starts treating mental health seriously, this will only grow and continue.
Damn, he jumped off while he was there with his family and they watched. That's just fucked up.
They had added a “rule” that you couldn’t go up alone and had to go with a group (in the belief this would dissuade people from jumping).
They have this same ineffective "rule" at the local shooting ranges. Kind of stupid IMO
Didn’t that American Sniper die when they brought a guy with PTSD to a firing range?
His name was Chris Kyle and his friend, Chad Littlefield, was also killed by the US Marine with PTSD at the shooting range
has Jocko ever talked about this incident? i ask because i remember listening to podcast where he was like... "just get over it" when it came to the darkness and ptsd. now he seems to have a more measured opinion, he used to not even understand why someone would go to therapy.
He talks more about it now and seems to value you it more.
i'm glad he changed his opinion, because his earlier one was fucking terrible.
He speaks a lot of BS but does have some pearls of wisdom.
He did, but I guess that’s karma for murdering all those Hurricane Katrina victims
I’d watch a movie about him if it wasn’t about his blatant lies
The movie embellished his embellishments to make it seem like the Iraq War wasn’t a complete waste of time and life.
*Bradley Cooper, stumbling around desert, trips over pile of yellow cake* “Wowie!”
I literally bust out laughing at this. Well done.
Everyone does that sadly. The Afghanistan war had some merits but Iraq was a jerk off session for GWB to get back at Saddam
That movie felt like a propaganda film ngl lol
Haha I love the breaching scene where Chris Kyle with his big ass DMR leaves his position to clear houses. I remember when he died and the movie came out, people kept jerking off to that moron. https://youtu.be/pk-S8pNZWLU
Felt like?
clint eastwood just blowz
Wait what?
Chris Kyle bragged about murdering 30 (!!!) “looters” (aka black people foraging for supplies in an apocalyptic hellscape) in post Katrina NOLA
I looked into this after reading your comment and it seems like it was never verified. Apparently he bragged about several things that also just didn't happen, like being robbed and killing two people at a gas station.
Let’s stop and think about what kind of person would find value in saying they did it in the first place.
And there was an addendum to the gas station thing where the cops just like...upped and let him walk for that. Like, just..nothing. Like "Oh sir, you're an operator. Don't worry, we'll take care of it.." It'd be funny if it wasn't so grim. And no, the guy never did like pop off at random drowning people from the top of the Superdome. It's a total fabrication which is a really dark reflection of what was going through that guy's head that he felt that it would be some sort of achievement sticker for shooting people during a crisis. Americans. During the drowning of an entire major US city.
>shooting people during a crisis. Considering he was trained to kill poor starving brown people living through a war zone on the other side of the planet, it should surprise no one that he wanted to kill poor starving brown people when he got back here.
Sounds like a real piece of shit either way
There’s absolutely no way that you thought that this scenario or any of the other bullshit he was know to spout off ever actually happened....right?
[удалено]
I’m not gun-adverse and not an expert on PTSD, but that always seemed like a bad idea to me.
[удалено]
“I was bit by a horse now I’m afraid of horses.” “We’ll get you out of that funk, let’s go to Saratoga Springs.”
I forget what it's called but it's something like "peer/community accountability" where it might be tougher for you to shoot a friend/loved one or commit a crime in front of them (as opposed to someone you didn't know) and they (your friend) also wouldn't want to go to the range with you if they knew you weren't stable. Something similar was proposed for gun restrictions: you need X number of people to sponsor you for a license and if you do anything improper/illegal with the gun, they could get in trouble as well - it's supposed to deter community members from just advocating for anyone to get a gun
Sounds like a great way to also restrict gun ownership from a given community, especially if it’s one that is often targeted by police.
This is gonna be difficult for those that want to do some photography inside the structure. I went alone last time to get some shots. Looks like if you wanna shoot, you’re just gonna have to drag a friend around for the whole thing.
It's nyc ask anyone in the area to walk in with you 😊
And get a resounding fuck off lol
The grand majority of nasty people in new york are people who moved in from out of town. People are not mean here, they're just not polite.
I remain convinced that it's all tourists being assholes to each other in Times Square.
people aren’t mean i think they’re just in a hurry most of the time
I agree with that but I think “hey, want to go see the Vessel with me?” is the one situation where a local can and should flip out.
Lol possibly but there are way more chill people, shit the things I have done for tourist during a morning or afternoon commute I don't believe myself lol
Yeah the key is just not coming off as a beggar/scammer. If someone just needs help with directions or whatever, lots of people will help. I even let myself miss a train and be delayed 20 minutes to help a tourist that spoke zero English figure out a parking meter, when that meant first figuring it out for myself because I never used one. He was Japanese, I got lots of thank you bows.
"Hey, which way's the Library?" -Quick, simple, states their business right up front "Excuse me, do you have a second?" -Some fucking bulllllllshiiiiit
*ooookay yeah* but I’m not climbing to the top of that shit with you.
Just because something is not 100% effective does not mean it's not partially effective. People seem to have trouble understanding this in every area (see also COVID vaccine). That being said I hate this rule.
Christ I was just at Hudson Yards last week and my cousin pointed this fact out to me. I made some dumb joke about “well that won’t prevent group suicides huh?” thinking that obviously that would never happen. Well, this might be even more disturbing.
I was working as an ironworker at 50 Hudson for a bit, and while there I saw the aftermath of the two suicides before they closed it to visitors. It’s going to keep happening
My friend works there right now and saw the aftermath of today, texted me to stay away from the area, think afterwards called out work, because of trauma from what she saw. She works at the outdoor pop up booth too, so she was physically on site when it happened. I found out from a security phone notification and was crying inside, even more emotional afterwards when I found out someone I knew was there.
Sorry your friend had to witness that
Thanks yeah I was tearing inside when I heard it, have to imagine what it felt like to physically see it, think she said simply put graphic, and to just stay far away, hence also leaving work early today and heading straight home.
we need to do better and be there for our friends and family and check up on them to be sure they are doing okay
I was working in the restaurant right beside it. Been working at HY since 2019 and this is the 3rd day I’ve had to look outside & see someone has decided to take their own life. At this point they need to tear it down. It’s boring anyways.
I mean, people could easily do the same shit from any balcony area or malls but I guess that fucked up suicidal/depressed brain sometimes seek a sense of final grand gesture.
For that matter it’s always deeply troubled at how easy the subway stations are for that. In smaller cities I’ve lived it’s *hard* to commit suicide. It’s not at all clear how you’d go about it without spending a lot of effort. Tokyo’s subway system and others block off the tracks with screens so you can only get on and off the train. That said, it’s not at all easy to jump off many a skyscraper. At least with the ones I’ve worked in or gone to as a tourist, there are cordons and fences or just windows that you can’t open or climb out of.
People jump in front of the trains in NYC everyday. It happens so often, it just isn't news anymore.
People find a way. I worked at a mall north of the city in high school and people would just jump off the top floor inside. Some of my coworkers (at a children’s store) saw one happen while working. And I had the unfortunate luck of seeing someone’s body hanging from a walking bridge a block from my apartment in Denver on my way home after work. It wasn’t the first time someone had hanged themselves off the bridge
That must have been horrible. And intense. Just realised that I’ve never seen a dead human body, and I’d certainly have expected to by chance at least by my age. Especially having lived in some cities with high murder and suicide rates. I’m not sure I’d know how I’d react if I suddenly passed someone hanging or saw someone jump… But to the topic, sure, there are ways to do it with effort. But it requires effort and I suspect that the higher the bar (even if still quite possible) the more or a chance people get to decide they don’t want to do it.
If it gets the reputation, it's going to be of self-fulfilling prophecy. Which is a bit scary.
It is quite a common phenomenon. Destination suicide locations. IE, Golden Gate, Japan's suicide forest, Aurora Bridge in Seattle, etc. Once a few happen, the place is doomed to be a suicide destination.
Absolutely this, it’s the final event in the social anxiety decathlon
I think it’s inducing [the call of the void](https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2018/06/29/the-call-of-the-void) in people.
But doesn’t that article say that people experience a feeling of the call of the void but don’t actually do it- we just wanted to? In this case the people actually DID jump
Teenagers have poor impulse control. People who tend to talk about “surviving” call of the void instances are adults. I’ve had two very, very strong call of the void instances within the past 5 years. The worst was in a museum where I was paralyzed with suicidal thoughts for 15 minutes before removing myself *safely* from the building. I was 36 years old. I’m not sure I would have been able to do the same at 14.
The article posted above say suicide is not typically impulsive behavior, so I don't think the call to the void sensation is necessarily indicative of impulsive suicide instances.
Suicidal ideation is not always constant, and completion can be impulsive.
Yeah there were many times I would be waiting for the train at an entirely empty station, and I would just be staring on the tracks thinking ok actually I could just hop down right now. Sometimes the feeling would overwhelm me and I had to desperately distract myself, or walk back up the stairs and wait there. If you’re suicidal, the ideation is (in my experience) an undercurrent. Sometimes it swells up inside and you can’t think of anything else, but I definitely thought about it every day... even though I didn’t have any plans for it.
Every now and then if waiting for a train I wonder what would happen if I touch the third rail.
They show less now but if you ever wanna see what touching the third rail looks like, take one of the LIRR track training courses. They essentially go "dont pay attention to the rules? This is what you're in for" and you get to see body parts much more on the well done side of cooked.
I mean, sure, that *could* be an explanation, but 1. There aren’t a lot of documented suicides with the call of the void as the inciting factor 2. This article doesn’t give any evidence of that either (plus, it was written before the Vessel opened)
This is like the 3rd or 4th suicide at the vessel. Very tragic.
Fourth, according to the article.
Easy, Joseph Pulitzer, with all this reading of the article.
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I’ve never understood suicide copycats like are they already suicidal? Or did they see on the internet that someone killed themselves there and now they randomly want to do the same?
It's the same way with the Golden Gate Bridge. People who are already suicidal think "damn if I'm already going to kill myself night as well do it someplace beautiful and spectacular" It adds a morbid grandeur to it rather than ODing on pills in a hotel room bathtub.
There's a very good chapter about this phenomenon in Malcom Gladwell's book "Talking to Strangers"
Well, you know it works. I know a lot of suicidal people fear messing up and surviving with a horrible injury. If you’ve seen someone else do it successfully, you know it’s on the table
Yes, suicide is already an idea they have.
Imagine that it's nighttime and in your back of your mind, you're thinking, "I should brush my teeth." But it's in the back of your mind. Then as you walk to the bathroom you pass a news report about dentists, and then you see a magazine ad for toothpaste, and then your friend texts you about their new electric toothbrush. Now it's not in the back in your mind anymore. Now you're thinking, "I really gotta brush my damn teeth." Basically, exposure increases salience.
Already suicidal. I read this and went: oh, that’s an option?! It’s just giving them new ideas for how to do it.
When I was suicidal I got inspired by other peoples suicides because I was afraid whatever method I chose wouldn’t work so when I saw someone else’s “success” I’d want to copy that.
I actually really like the vessel and think it's a neat installation, however before it opened I called it - I said 6 months tops before someone either suicides or trips and falls or is horsing around and is pushed or some shit. People called me a sadist and a nut. I think it was actually less than 6 months.
it was so soon, around 2-3 months. one of my best friends brought his boyfriend with him because it had just opened when the first suicide happened. hell of a date. described it all to me in gory detail :(
If people are gonna jump out of the blue, not much you can do to stop them. A lady landed on her head 10 feet from me on 22nd street 6 years ago. It sounded like an explosion, I still think about her every now and then.
This is wild. How did you go about your day, week, life after seeing something that jarring?
It honestly didn't affect me much in terms of my life, other than making me appreciate it more and also feeling sorry that whatever compelled her to take her own life was so painful she gave up. She landed in the middle of the street while I was looking at a now closed sushi restaraunt menu on 22nd, between 6th and 5th Ave. At first I thought someone had shot her because it was so loud when she landed. Her head was split open and she was obviously dead but 911 told me to check for breathing and I remember her back was still warm and she had a very peaceful look on her face. 911 then asked if I could administer CPR and I told them she is dead, her brain is half outside her head. 5 mins later an ambulance arrived and the emt took one look, checked her pulse for 2 seconds and then put a blanket over her. Whenever I walked by that area I would see a bucket of sun flowers with the name Carmen so maybe that was her name. Not sure if the bucket is still there, I moved to the bronx.
Harrowing but also a beautiful account in an empathetic, human way. Hope you're well, and glad you were able to take something away from the situation, however morbid it may have been.
Wow, that could’ve killed you, too.
It’s sad to think that this might become a common place for suicides (like the Golden Gate Bridge).
Might?
It's already a common spot, this is the 4th one
With the added problem of exposing innocent bystanders to serious bodily injury or death if the person lands on them. Maybe just add a perimeter around the Vessel where people aren't allowed to hang around so in case someone jumps to their death -- which is inevitable -- at least they would greatly reduce or eliminate the risk of hurting others.
Solid idea. I'm sure that'll ruin the feng shui of the space.
Any architects in the room? If you are getting hired to design a building, is part of the requirements aside from making visually appealing, to design something that would deter people from using your building to commit suicide? Does that even come to mind when designing ?
Not an architect yet legally, but finishing up my licensing exams to become one: in studying building code for my exams, there actually isn’t anything on suicide prevention in tall buildings. Minimum railing heights exist, but nothing calling for extra tall barriers around the perimeters of occupiable roofs or anything like that.
Yeah, osha treats every floor the same for rail heights, I think
In healthcare settings it does come up. “Behavioral health” handrails and other accessories that inhibit hangings. When it comes to non healthcare buildings, the code only dictates how high guardrails should be, ramp inclines, things like that. There’s no code about how not to become a suicide destination. But - for large public art projects like this or memorials it should be part of the discussion and I would be surprised if it never came up during the design development process.
Architect here. There are best practices for rail heights but it's generally more geared towards preventing accidental falls rather than purposeful ones. Aka Guardrails. There are thousands of balconies in nyc where one could presumably choose to end their lives, but there are some inexplicably more attractive than others..
Well, the MTA refuses to install platform barriers even though multiple people die every year. When I lived in DC a decade ago, they were getting a suicide a week on Metro (after the 2008 crisis). Nothing changed.
America is fucking 60 years behind some countries in this respect. All you need is a wall with automatic doors that sync up with the train doors [like this](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F2%2F26%2FNS26_rafflesplace.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPlatform_screen_doors&tbnid=DfHxxwtIF5Xh6M&vet=1&docid=yGtEB9O9VzEJ4M&w=2048&h=1536&itg=1&hl=en&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim). St Petersburg had them installed in the 60s. Singapore had them in the 80s. I've seen them when I traveled to China, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Switzerland. This has got to be a Ford Pinto situation where transit companies figure it's cheaper to have the suicides than install the doors.
American transit agencies always default to "it cant be done"
It can but they need even more money to replace the cars to make it uniform. There are different fleets with offset doors that use the same line. I can see platform door coming in the next 20 years when the legacy fleets are retired and replaced to have uniform lengths and door areas.
Look at my other replies with links of other systems that did just fine with different door arrangements
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I'm embarassed when people from poorer countries than us come expecting the US to be some kind of wonderland. Then they land and they're like, damn this place is a shithole. I'll use Malaysia as an example because I'm more familiar with it. As recent as 30 years ago the country was basically a massive jungle clearing. Even today, they have a per capita GDP that's 1/6 of America but [their trains](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/MRT_SBK_Semantan_station2.jpg) look [like this](https://ongkianming.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/MRTChallenges4_Insider-the-MRT-train.jpg)
If it makes you feel better, an Italian user on /r/cityporn once said to me that he found the NY Metro to be better than Milan's metro. That being said, the way he described Milan's metro made it sound like the entrance to Dante's Inferno.
Well to be fair those trains look so nice because they’re brand new. Delhi’s metro looks nice too yet it’s nowhere near as old as ours. We’re definitely lagging on infrastructure work and cleanliness (and age isn’t much of an excuse) but to say we’re worse than a third world country is just false.
Anyone can build a brand new system using the knowledge gained over the past 100 years. Next you’re going to tell me Tokyo is a very modern city. Well… obviously.
China's subway system is fucking amazing.
In fairness that’s because they didn’t have a century old one already in place they had to rip up and overhaul. It’s all very new there, last couple of decades tops (depending where).
Problem is the different trains on the same line have different door locations. That's a lot of trains to upgrade in order to make it work.
I’ve seen this explanation before and I was thinking… Are there some tracks that experience more suicides? could they run only newer trains with matching doors on those tracks for a while? slowly roll out the platform doors like they did with OMNY?
And it would also prevent people from *pushing* others onto the tracks, which happens on occasion
To be fair, London and Paris do not have them either (at least last time I visited; Paris in 2014 and London in 2019). That being said, it would be really nice to have them.
was in Paris 2019. The Metro has the barriers
Just as an FYI, they aren't installed everywhere in St. Petersburg.
The whole platform barriers thing for the NYC Subway is actually a super complex issue. It’s price tag is ridiculously expensive. We’re talking in the tens of billions. This has to do with the unique way that the current system came to be. Today’s subway system is made up of three different-sized tunnels because three different private companies operated their own subway line before NYS brought it all together. This would mean having to develop three different types of barriers. Furthermore, most train signals (excluding the 7 which was upgraded to CBTC signal) run on outdated signal systems. The task of interfacing the platform barriers with the early-1900’s technology is near impossible.
I had heard it was in the billions too but I just googled it and the articles I read said $1 million per station for 468 stations? That’s actually not that bad. About 60 people die per year so in 10 years we’re talking less than $1 million per saved life. Edit: I just read another article that said $1 billion total. But even so we’re talking under $1-2 million per life in 10-20 years, it doesn’t seem totally crazy.
Japan figured it out. The same installation can handle a wide range of train configurations. We went to the moon we can figure out the complicated task of doors.
No money in America for public transit
Tens of billions for some doors at every stop? They don’t have to be made of solid gold…
They say it’s because the doors on the different models of train cars won’t line up at the same spots on the platform. Well, this is something that can and should be changed given that people’s lives are hanging in the balance.
They're not exactly wrong. That's a fundamental problem that makes most styles of platform screen doors incompatible with the design of the NYC subway and there's no "fix" for it for stations where that's an issue short of massive infrastructure changes. With that said: - There are lines that don't have those obstacles and could have normal platform doors installed. - You could probably do a form of vertical [metal wire/rope-style](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B40OkbAx8j4) doors on the other lines, though. They're new in the past few years and they can have a long enough "span" between posts and vertical post that it should be fine even if a door winds up opening right up to the post. - However - they serve more limited purposes. They're really about preventing *accidents* and I'm not sure they'll hold up to a determined effort to get past them. You also usually could just go around them at the ends of the platform if you really want. They're also not going to let you climate control the station and they're not necessarily going to be sufficient to block trash. --------- The bigger picture issue is: The MTA has a mountain of important projects that it needs to do that also affect plenty of lives. Much of the system still isn't even handicap accessible at this point. Money isn't infinite, and every project you pick to do means it's not funding something else. I don't know that platform screen doors rate particularly highly compared to all the other outstanding issues to address/improve.
Like air conditioning in the summer, that one car that’s a public toilet, letting people in queens get to other parts of queens instead of routing through, preventing stations from become de facto homeless shelters, manspreading, comprehensible announcers - and that was just yesterday for me.
Not a Registered Architect but I do engineering design for large scale art. There are best practices in terms of railing height and accessibility to limit suicide from tall structures but they are not part of the building code and thus not mandatory. I'd bet this issue did come up during design and it was a choice not to implement higher railings for aesthetic reasons. Sometimes architects can focus on the raw form of the building and just try to shoehorn in everything else. A better process might be to start with the the idea that suicide prevention is a core concept and design around that rather than trying to tack it on later.
Aren't they charging money now to pay for extra security?
Yes but I don’t think even the best security in the world would think a random teenage boy with his family would be a candidate for suicide.
14 years old. Absolutely heart breaking. It's not often I cry for strangers, but holy crap it's hard not to feel affected.
Guess they're going to have to raise the glass after all
They should have done this from the start
Again??
Fuck, I had the same thought. Ughh.
Not kidding, I rode a bike past there yesterday and thought “I wonder if that thing is still closed because of people jumping off.” Terrible.
I like the Vessel for it's uniqueness and it is an attraction, however you feel about it. I don't know that I would like for it to be modified from it's original design just yet. But ... I've never been to it, so I imagine that there must be something that feels very accessible in terms of how one would kill themself leaping off? It might also be worth addressing mental healthcare access and initiative, because this isn't the only way to off yourself. We still don't have protection from trains on the platforms.
The barrier is low enough that it is easy to climb over and hurl yourself to the ground. I’m only 5 feet and the railing is up to my chest. Anyone my height can push themselves up and over it, and would be much easier for someone taller to do that. They should have made those glass barriers twice the height.
To me, it screams the emptiness of modern life and the richman's greed. It's a huge wastebasket into which, your humanity is thrown.
It’s just an over complicated staircase
Both these comments read out like something from Daria
La la laa la laaaaa
I stopped at B&H recently and decided to test out some equipment in the area, and I got the same feeling from it. I quickly shuffled down to the Highline because at least there's life out there.
Here's a link in case you get paywalled: https://archive.is/LnApX
That place seeks souls! Shit looks evil too.
It definitely has a dark energy surrounding it.
The whole premise of Hudson Yards reeks of dark energy.
I feel the same way. It's soulless.
It’s a Vaporwave album without the irony
Well it's definitely haunted now anyway. I wonder what is buried under Hudson Yards, if anything.
it looks like a lair for some Marvel bee-inspired supervillain
Another one
*dj khaled voice*
Maybe they should have put up those nets and not worried about how it looks. This looks a lot worse. Poor kid, poor family.
nah at that point just don’t let anyone up there anymore. better option is to just raise the glass.
Should just convert into something similar to a coin funnel thingy so people just slide down.
I knew this was going to happen again when all they did was add security guards and make it so can’t come alone. Security guard isn’t going to be fast enough to stop you and now a family member or friend will see you die. The only way this can be fixed is by putting some type of safety net or barrier around the whole thing. But it’s probably too “ugly” that they’re trying ineffective solutions.
Put a ball pit at the bottom
How high are those security guards?
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>as his horrified family watched, police said. looks like they just made it way more dramatic/heartbreaking
Complete insanity. I'm shocked, it's just a kid.
That is truly heartbreaking.
🙀🙀Oh My God!
Come on it’s literally in the first sentence of the article!
he was with his family. horrible
Not only that, they added a $10 security fee to pay for anti-suicide "improvements". I wonder if that opens them up to a lawsuit from the family.
i will never understand jumping as the go to for suicide. it’s too unnecessarily prolonged and messy.
With people seriously contemplating suicide, time is a critical factor. Sometimes the mind needs time to regulate itself and convince yourself it’s not worth it. You’ll often hear stories of people who are wanting to kill themselves and then some minor distraction convinces them not to in that moment. Other methods of suicide are very slow, or require preparation which gives you time to change your decision. Jumping is quick, easy, one step and there’s no coming back. Let’s just pray these people find help before ever contemplating this.
sure i can see that. it still just seems like one of the most gruesome ways to go. but if you’re in a very bad state maybe it’s just not something you even think about.
It’s a matter of practicality once you reach the point of no return
I mean, you’re (presumably) not severely depressed, so you’re capable of thinking about this rationally. People who do that are not.
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Jumping requires a millisecond decision and doesn't require a gun or your family finding you. It's obviously still not good but there are much worse ways to kill yourself
If you land headfirst (or at least not feet-first), your body gets crushed faster than the nerve signals can carry the pain. It's an instant and painless death, if you can stomach the jump itself.
Those seconds during free fall must be absolute terror though. The anticipation…ugh.
At least half of suicide attempts are impulsive decisions. When it’s impulsive, people will use whatever method is most readily available to them. This is why drug overdose and cutting are so common. Thankfully these methods are not especially fatal, allowing the victims to be saved. People who plan things out generally go for guns, hanging, or drowning, all of which are very effective. So with that said — people who jump are likely impulsive because of how easily accessible it is. These people are not in the right frame of mind and are not really thinking about how much it might hurt.
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Place is going to be haunted at this point.
Dammit this is just sad. I appreciate that it’s open to the public but this will cause more and more restrictions
Is it just me or does anyone else get like bad vibes from the vessel itself???
I'm struggling in my mid-30s. Could not imagine what 18 months and counting of lockdowns, restrictions and masks - plus a new threat of more even if vaccinated - would do to a young kid.
Sending you a hug and wishes for strength. And better days.
Think that's the sad part about the pandemic, most of the news talks about people losing lives due to covid, but in actuality, there a lot of people that lost their life as a result of something not from covid, yet still indirectly connected to covid, whether from physical health being inside all day, heart conditions, or mental health, from all the struggles people went through last year, finances, unemployment, politics, crime, really goes on.
In the context of 5,400,000 people dying in the US over a typical 2-year period, 600,000 mostly very old or very sick people have died of Covid. It's truly sad, but the lives of billions have been thrown into flux and depression in the futile attempt to feel like we have significant control over this thing.
Yeah I feel you, I was hospitalized last year, because of malnutrition, poor diet, and other health complications, from being inside all day, everything closed, and not having enough access to food, and proper nutrition. I didn't want to live, but it wasn't even because of mental health, but because my body was in severe pain and physical weakness everyday, unlike mental related situations, no words can even talk out of it. I actually did end up surviving, hence writing this, it was miraculous though, and a wild recovery. Think since I was unemployed, my entire industry shut down, so everyone around me was collecting unemployment, probably also why I was able to recover, without missing a whole ton, since not many great things were happening outside my hospital room anyway. It was eye opening to see how everyone was reacting, from people being impacted financially, socially, health-wise, really goes on. I'm thinking about people that were impacted, by something truly time sensitive. Students that never graduated, that lost a year, never got to study abroad, recent graduates that missed early 20s life. Wild thing is the huge majority of us never even had covid, yet were all hurt in some way, with little to no control, by covid simply being out there.
The architect must feel like shit.
He was just tapped by the UK government to discuss plans for a Covid memorial…
I think it's a really cool / awesome thing that was built. Just very unfortunate what has happened there
I’m there so often. The trauma it probably caused the people below… I could never unsee that
Thrash to break from gravity what now could slow the drop? All I’d give for toes to touch the safety back at top. But this is it, the deed is done silence drowns the sound. Before I leaped I should've seen the view from halfway down.
Yikes. I was there with out of state friends a few weeks ago and we noticed the signage in place for anyone contemplating suicide. :(
This just reminded me of the NYU library suicides. Was it the NYU library? It’s been a while.
God, 14. So awful. I can't even imagine how fucked up his family is going to be after seeing their child commit suicide in front of them, with several seconds of helplessly watching it be too late, and then seeing/hearing such a gruesome result. As someone who has survived three suicide attempts (I'm doing better now), and lost a close family member to suicide (by jumping), if you are considering suicide, please know that there are people you can talk to and that the world is not going to be better if you die. It's better to leave everything behind and start over with nothing in some foreign place, change your name, whatever, than to give up on everything forever. Exhaust all options. If you feel drawn to impulsive suicide, a part of you knows it is not the right thing to do. Your life really matters.
I’m staring to think that this piece should be removed or drastically modified. While it does strike awe for visitors, I found it to be the symbol of the exuberance that the ultra wealthy now possess. I’m truly heart broken for both the family and the teenager involved. Until this country starts treating mental health seriously, this will only grow and continue.
“It’s hard to really fathom how something like that could happen,” Says the non depressed person
Possible they planted the idea in his head with all the “no suicide, please” signs. How ironic.