For nearly a decade, New Yorkers have watched (at times with feigned enthusiasm) as glass and steel seemed to be in a slow-motion race toward the sky in Manhattan's midtown west. The end result has come to be known as Hudson Yards, the largest mixed-use private real-estate project in American history: a meganeighborhood that includes four skyscrapers designed by some of the world's most high-profile architects; a seven-story, 720,000-square-foot shopping mall; an eye-catching (if not head-scratching) cultural center dubbed the Shed ; and a curious-looking structure anchoring the entire project. And today, after four years of fabrication and construction, the centerpiece of the oft-discussed Hudson Yards opens to the public via free, timed-entry tickets.

The Vessel, as the structure is temporarily being called, is an interactive sculpture comprising a network of stairs and landings that visitors can climb (or take an elevator) to the top. The completion of the Vessel has a Hollywood-like story. After the commission was awarded to the British-based designer Thomas Heatherwick (who beat out, among others, Anish Kapoor to earn the project), the developer went to extreme lengths in keeping the design a secret. So much so that a 20-foot fence was constructed around the steelworks in northwest Italy where the bones of the Vessel was being constructed so that no one could see what the design was going to be. Bit by bit, parts of it were brought to the U.S. and floated to the construction site via tugboat along New York's Hudson River.

The bones of the Vessel were built in Italy and hidden from the public so that no one could see what the design was going to be.

Then—as word spread on its design and purpose—came the outrage by many New Yorkers (and New York publications ) that the cost—which exceeded $150 million—did more than raise a few eyebrows. Some have called it a beehive, a rib cage, and (this writer's favorite) a doner kebab . Others, however, believe it could be New York's version of the Eiffel Tower. Starting today, those debates can actually begin to flush themselves out as the masses collectively come to define what this structure is and whether we truly need it.

Hudson Yards is located between 30th and 33rd Streets, and between Tenth Avenue and the West Side Highway. In total, the space will include a whopping 18 million square feet, spread throughout 16 buildings on 28 acres of land. The total cost (much to the chagrin of many local New Yorkers) has roughly netted out to $25 billion. Each building in the space is designed to move in response to an opposing building. "Ultimately, each building was designed to gesture toward the open space," says William Pedersen, one of the principals at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, a firm tasked with designing several skyscrapers in Hudson Yards. And there's no larger space than the one the Vessel will occupy. As such, it's the point to which the eye is most naturally drawn. This makes its task a steep one: creating harmony and balance within a grid of vertical metal and glass. Which is precisely why the structure is shaped the way it is. "It expands upward, the inversion of all the buildings around it," says Stuart Wood, group leader at Heatherwick Studio. The team at Heatherwick Studio used a noncorrosive steel to coat each level of the structure. This was meant to mirror the action and movement above and below every layer of the 150 foot-tall Vessel, making the experience more interactive.

A view inside of the Vessel shows the noncorrosive steel that coats each level.

"Bringing bold designs back to public spaces, that's what this project is fundamentally about," says Wood. "If you think about it, that's something that the best cities in the world do," Wood continued. "That is, create three-dimensional objects that bring people together in ways that otherwise wouldn't be happening." There will be ample ways in which visitors will have the opportunities to come together. One hundred and fifty-four ways, to be exact. Along with 80 landings, that's the number of staircases that will complete the Vessel's interior.

Which is all to say, the Vessel will serve as nothing more (or less) than a place to walk up and down. To stand and contemplate. Or meet with friends and family before leaving to explore the city. And that's exactly what all parties involved in its creation want it to be. Its ambiguity is its greatest strength. "Over time its use will evolve in ways we can't even imagine right now," says Wood. "In this way we're giving the structure to the city and allowing them to define it."

Related (the developers of Hudson Yards) and Heatherwick Studios want the Vessel to be a gathering place for tourists, yes, but more important, New Yorkers. "I want people who live here to use this space and feel a part of it," developer Stephen Ross (a man many credit with making mixed-use buildings commonplace on the city's skyline) said one recent morning as he walked up the Vessel for the first time. "Because it's really for them." In other words, Ross hopes that locals will one day soon say, "Let's meet at the Vessel" and not "Let's avoid the Vessel," as many New Yorkers do of Times Square.

Inside of the Vessel, the structure has the feel of a Escher-like drawing, where stairs seem to lead nowhere in particular.

Upon exiting the Vessel, I asked Ross about the emotions he was feeling after his maiden voyage. "I can say this with absolute certainty: Once you walk up and down that thing"—he indicated with a thumb pointing backward—"you'll want to do it again, and again, and again."

What Ross hopes is that the Vessel (which will be open every day of the year) becomes the architectural pearl of New York City. And much like a pearl, the structure is cocooned by a shell of skyscrapers, and cushioned by hundreds of plants and trees. The greenery will come courtesy of Thomas Woltz, the owner of the lauded landscape architecture firm Nelson Byrd Woltz. "It's not easy to build nature within a space that is so inhospitable," says Woltz in reference to the slab of island that is Manhattan. "But we made it work, in large part by using plants that were native to New York all throughout the space."

Moving past the fact that Heatherwick designed the structure, there is a tangible connection that can be made between the Vessel and Thomas Heatherwick as a person. His firm, Heatherwick Studio, houses 200 architects to design buildings around the globe (among their more notable projects are Learning Hub in Singapore; a complex for Bombay Sapphire in Hampshire, England; and the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town). Thomas Heatherwick, however, isn't an architect. He's a designer. Such can be said about the design he's just completed. It's a massive steel structure in Manhattan that houses no residents or office space. But many wonder if the city needs it. It's a fact that major government subsidies were granted for Hudson Yards to be realized (researchers at the New School in New York concluded that the city will spend $5.6 billion of taxpayers’ money on the project).

Furthermore, there are significant safety concerns to take into consideration. Studies have suggested that Hudson Yards will house more than 125,000 residents. Which is to say, New York's newest neighborhood will have a larger population than West Palm Beach, Florida; Norwalk, Connecticut; and Green Bay, Wisconsin. It's been reported that all of these new residents will be living in a highly condensed space without a single fire station. The nearest firehouses to Hudson Yards are already stretched thin in an increasingly populated city, making the problem that much more dire.

Nevertheless, much if not all of that animosity will be forgotten if the Vessel proves its worth. It's been noted that Heatherwick is so keen on the extraordinary that he's been known to sign his name with an exclamation point at the end. Here's to hoping that with the same sleight of hand, Heatherwick has created an exclamation point within the city that all New Yorkers can be proud of.