When quality wine is grown, the composition of the land that surrounds the vines is equally as important as the vine itself. Terroir, from the French word terre meaning land, describes the environmental factors that affect a crop's character.
Much like a vine, people are vastly affected by the places they've been and the ground that raised them. But Hudson Yards, Manhattan's latest real estate development that houses a shawarma-looking sculpture that tourists can climb called The Vessel, is an anomaly. No one was raised here.
The headlines describing this metropolis range from, "There's No Good Reason for a New Yorker to Go to Hudson Yards" to "Hudson Yards: A City Within a City." If you wander the vast marble-lined halls or sip a coffee on the uninviting ledges surrounding the West Side's centerpiece (The Vessel), you will undoubtedly begin to wonder who the heck these people are.
So we investigated. Meet five random civilians who made us—Sarah Jacobs, ONE37pm’s photo editor, and me, Madison Russell, your resident style editor—curious enough to ask why they were in Hudson Yards. At times, we sprinted behind people to no avail, and at times, the perfect subjects fell into our path.