The Giant Bear That Stopped New York in Its Tracks
You can walk past the most extraordinary things in this city without looking up. New Yorkers are professionals at it. But the bear at Hudson Yards Plaza stops people. It stops them mid-sentence, mid-bite, mid-scroll. It is impossible to pretend it is not there.
The sculpture is monumental in scale, pink and purple in color, and covered from head to toe in scientific formulas, mathematical symbols, and words: "Dream." "Imagine." "Love Matters." Its surface is built from carbon fiber with a silver-based chrome finish, which means it mirrors the city back at you while asking a question the city rarely asks: what if love is the most important variable in any equation?
This is "Love Matters" by Brendan Murphy, installed in Hudson Yards Plaza alongside its companion piece, a chrome astronaut titled "Launchpad." Together they are part of Murphy's global public art tour, "Love Matters... Everywhere," and together they are two of the most talked-about free experiences in New York City right now.
Where: Hudson Yards Plaza, next to The Vessel, 10 Hudson Yards, Manhattan How to get there: Subway line 7 to Hudson Yards station Cost: Completely free
Hudson Yards: New York's Newest Neighborhood
To understand why the bear lands the way it does here, it helps to know a little about where it stands.
Hudson Yards is New York City's newest neighborhood, built directly over an active rail yard on the Far West Side of Midtown Manhattan. The first phase opened in 2019, and what emerged was unlike anything the city had built before: a cluster of some of the tallest skyscrapers in the Western Hemisphere arranged around a public plaza, with a high-end shopping center, a world-class performance venue (The Shed), an observation deck (Edge) rising 1,131 feet into the sky, and a honeycomb sculpture called The Vessel rising from the center of it all.
It is a neighborhood designed to be looked at, photographed, and experienced. Public art is not an afterthought here. It is part of the architecture. And the Love Matters Bear, standing in that plaza against that skyline, fits into that language while simultaneously questioning it: all this glass and steel and ambition, and the thing that matters most is still just this.
Who Is Brendan Murphy? The Story Behind the Bear
Brendan Murphy was born in 1971 and has lived a life that reads like the backstory his sculptures seem to be telling.
He began as a professional basketball player. When that chapter ended, he moved to Wall Street. He built a career in finance, learned the language of numbers and markets, and might have stayed there indefinitely if the world had not interrupted.
On September 11, 2001, Murphy was in New York. What he witnessed that day ended his time on Wall Street. He enrolled in art studies under legendary New York artists including Eric Fischl, David Salle, and Ross Bleckner, and committed fully to making work that carried the weight of what he had lived. He has not looked back since.
Today, Murphy works from studios in Malibu, California and Miami, Florida. His work is held in more than 600 private collections globally, and his collectors include Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Steph Curry, Robert De Niro, Warren Buffett, Ryan Gosling, and Rafael Nadal. His sculptures have appeared in New York, Washington D.C., Oslo, Riyadh, Antigua, Perth, and Houston, where a 13-foot BOONJI spaceman stands permanently at Minute Maid Park.
That trajectory from athlete to banker to artist, from Wall Street to public plazas around the world, is not just biographical trivia. It is the engine behind everything he makes.
What Is BOONJI? The Word Murphy Invented
Before the bear, there was the spaceman.
Murphy's signature series is the BOONJI Spaceman: a helmeted astronaut figure, built to monumental scale in carbon fiber and chrome, arms often outstretched or reaching forward, face hidden behind a visor. BOONJI is a word Murphy invented himself. It means, in his own definition, positive energy derived from creativity. It is the feeling of committing to something before you know how it ends. Of stepping into the unknown not with fear, but with everything you have.
The astronaut represents that leap. Murphy has described the BOONJI character as the version of himself that left everything familiar to become an artist: suited up, visor down, launching into territory with no map.
The Love Matters Bear is what came after the launch.
The Bear: From Astronaut to Open Arms
Where the BOONJI astronaut wears armor and faces the unknown, the Love Matters Bear is unguarded. No helmet. No suit. Just a bear, standing with open arms, covered in the language of science and the insistence that love is not soft, not naive, and not separate from the equations that run the world.
Murphy has described the bear as the warmer expression of the same core idea: the choice of openness over fear, connection over armor, love over the impulse to suit up against the world. The astronaut asks what happens when you leap. The bear is the answer.
The formulas, symbols, and words that cover the bear's surface are intentional. Murphy studied under artists who came from a tradition of painting as language, and the inscribed surface is that instinct taken into three dimensions. Science and emotion are not opposites in his work. They are the same argument.
The Companion Most Visitors Walk Past: Launchpad
Most people photograph the bear and move on. Many never notice the second sculpture standing nearby.
"Launchpad" is a chrome BOONJI astronaut, installed alongside the bear as part of the same installation. It is the counterpart: the figure still in the suit, still at the threshold, not yet arrived at the bear's openness. Together, the two works form a complete thought. The astronaut is the courage to leap. The bear is where you land.
If you visit Hudson Yards for the bear, spend a few minutes with the astronaut too. The conversation between them is the whole point.
Love Matters... Everywhere: The World Tour
The installation at Hudson Yards is part of "Love Matters... Everywhere," Murphy's ongoing global public art project with a simple operating principle: leave monumental bears in cities around the world as physical reminders of human connection.
The project treats public art as infrastructure for something cities tend not to budget for: the experience of encountering something warm and enormous and completely free in a place designed primarily for movement and commerce. Murphy's bears do not ask you to buy a ticket or sign up for an experience. They just stand there, in plazas and streets and parks, until you stop.
In a city like New York, where the pace is relentless and the signals from every direction are about productivity and consumption, a 10-foot chrome bear covered in "Love Matters" is a genuinely radical act.
How to Get There and When to Visit
Address: Hudson Yards Plaza, adjacent to The Vessel, 10 Hudson Yards, New York, NY 10001 Subway: Line 7 to Hudson Yards station. Exit directly into the plaza area Cost: Free. No ticket, no reservation
Best time for photos:
| Time | Light conditions | Crowd level |
| Early morning (7:00 to 9:00 AM) | Soft light, long shadows from the east | Very low |
| Midday (11:00 AM to 2:00 PM) | Harsh overhead light | High to very high |
| Late afternoon (4:00 to 6:00 PM) | Warm golden light from the west | Moderate |
| Sunset (from 6:30 PM in summer) | Dramatic orange and pink sky behind the chrome | Low to moderate |
Expert Tip from Real's Tours NYC: The chrome finish on the bear and the astronaut reflects everything around them, including you. At sunrise, the sculptures mirror the pink and orange sky in the most extraordinary way. It is worth the early alarm.
What Else to See at Hudson Yards While You're There
The bear is a reason to go to Hudson Yards. These are the reasons to stay longer.
Edge NYC: The Highest Outdoor Sky Deck in the Western Hemisphere
Rising 1,131 feet from the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards, Edge is the highest outdoor observation deck in the Western Hemisphere. The platform features a glass floor, angled glass walls, and outdoor skyline steps that extend from the 100th to the 101st floor.
This summer 2026, Edge is launching a complete transformation of its indoor spaces: new permanent immersive installations of light, color, and motion spanning from the ground floor entrance to the 100th floor sky deck. It is a significantly different experience from what it was even a year ago.
Tickets required for Edge. Book at edgenyc.com.
The Shed
The Shed is Hudson Yards' permanent cultural institution: a purpose-built space for art, music, performance, and ideas that do not fit conventional venues. Its movable outer shell can expand to double the building's footprint, creating event spaces that exist nowhere else in the city. Check current programming at theshed.org.
The High Line: Five Minutes Away
The southern end of the High Line, the elevated park built on a former freight railway running along the West Side of Manhattan, connects directly into Hudson Yards. Walking it north from Hudson Yards toward Chelsea takes you through some of the best street-level art and city views in the borough. It costs nothing.
Chelsea Market: Ten Minutes on Foot
Continue down the High Line or walk east along 15th Street and you reach Chelsea Market, the gourmet food hall built inside the original Nabisco factory. It is one of the best lunch or dinner options in the neighborhood, and the architecture alone is worth a visit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Love Matters Bear at Hudson Yards free to see?
Yes. The sculpture is installed in the public plaza at Hudson Yards and requires no ticket, no reservation, and no entry fee of any kind. Just show up.
Who made the bear at Hudson Yards?
The bear is by Brendan Murphy, a contemporary artist born in 1971, formerly a Wall Street banker who left his career after September 11 to study and make art full-time. His BOONJI Spaceman series and Love Matters sculptures are held in more than 600 private collections worldwide.
What does "BOONJI" mean?
BOONJI is a word invented by Brendan Murphy. It means positive energy derived from creativity: the feeling of committing fully to a leap into the unknown.
What does the bear say?
The surface of the Love Matters Bear is covered in scientific formulas, mathematical symbols, and inspirational words including "Dream," "Imagine," and the central message of the work: "Love Matters."
Is the bear a permanent installation?
The Love Matters Bear is part of Murphy's traveling "Love Matters... Everywhere" world tour. Check Hudson Yards' official site at hudsonyardsnewyork.com for current installation dates and whether it is still on display during your visit.
What is the companion sculpture next to the bear?
The companion piece is "Launchpad," a chrome BOONJI astronaut by the same artist, installed alongside the bear as part of the same installation. Most visitors photograph the bear and miss the astronaut entirely. They are meant to be read together.
Is Hudson Yards worth visiting beyond the bear?
Yes. Edge (the outdoor sky deck, with new immersive installations opening Summer 2026), The Shed, the High Line connection, and Chelsea Market make Hudson Yards a full half-day destination on its own.
See It as Part of a Full Day in New York
The bear is free. The walk from the subway takes two minutes. But if you are going to Hudson Yards, there is no reason to make it only about one sculpture when the rest of the city is within reach.
Our tours are built to connect exactly these kinds of dots: the art, the architecture, the history, and the neighborhoods that give each of them meaning.
VIP Contrasts Tour of New York
From $52 · 5.0 stars (314 reviews)
The most-reviewed tour in our catalog. The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan in one loop with a local expert who treats the whole city as a single story. The neighborhoods, the contrasts, the details that guidebooks leave out.
Upper and Lower Manhattan Tour
From $46 · 5.0 stars (97 reviews)
Covers the full length of Manhattan from Harlem to the Financial District, including the Far West Side, Central Park, and the landmarks that define the island. The ideal context tour for a visit that includes Hudson Yards.
New York City Lights Night Tour
From $46 · 5.0 stars (60 reviews)
Hudson Yards at night, with the chrome sculptures reflecting the lit skyline, is a completely different experience from the daytime version. This tour was made for that version of the city.
New York has always been a city that puts remarkable things in public spaces and dares you to walk past them. Brendan Murphy's Love Matters Bear at Hudson Yards dares you differently. It does not shout. It does not flash. It just stands there, pink and chrome and enormous, covered in equations that add up to something the city sometimes forgets to say out loud.
Go see it. Bring the people you love.
Questions before booking? Reach our team on WhatsApp: +1 (718) 362-0165
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