For National Ferris Wheel Day: On Some Big Wheels

Something appropriate there is about the fact that National Ferris Wheel Day and Valentine’s Day are one and the same. I can’t think of a more romantic date activity than a ride on one of those things…though probably not on February 14: brrrrrr!

Anyway, that’s not why this date was chosen for the celebration. It also happens to be the birthday of the ride’s creator George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. (1859-1896). A civil engineer, he built the first Ferris Wheel for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (better known as the Chicago World’s Fair) in 1893. His original ambition was to build his wheel larger than the Eiffel Tower, which had premiered at the Paris World’s Fair of 1889. This was not accomplished by a long way. The Eiffel Tower is 1083 ft. tall, as high as an 81 story building, still the tallest structure in Paris. No observational wheel has ever approached it in height. By contrast, Ferris’ wheel was 264 feet tall, about 12 stories high. There have been many taller Ferris Wheels since the original one, but many continue to describe that first one as the “largest”, for the reason that it was hugely wide, and carried enormous cars around its circuit. This photo gives a clear idea. Each car was the size of a bus. The ride could carry a total of 2,160 people.

The original Ferris Wheel got one additional engagement, at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. After this, it was deemed to expensive to move, and it was destroyed where it stood in 1906. Ferris had since passed way (sadly, he died of Typhus at age 37). He lived long enough to see his accomplishment bested London’s 275 foot tall Great Wheel, which was in operation from 1895 to 1907. This was followed by the 282 ft. Grande Roue de Paris (1900-1920).

These were all much taller than George Tilyou’s wheel at Steeplechase Park. Coney’s still extant Wonder Wheel was erected in 1920, as was the 212 foot Wiener Riesenrad in Vienna, which was the tallest one in the world for 65 years, its predecessors all having been dismantled. That’s the one depicted in the 1949 movie The Third Man.

I’ve had a devil of a time finding out the history of UNREMARKABLE Ferris Wheels, i.e. at what point every local amusement park, state and county fair and carnival began carrying SMALL Ferris Wheels — I’m going to assume that that process progressed from the turn of the last century (as in Coney Island) through the next few decades.

The game changed again in 1985 when Japan erected Technocosmos (279 feet tall, i.e. 85 meters) for the Expo ’85 World’s Fair. Since then (as with skyscrapers, and very much else) most of the vitality and energy has been usurped by Asia, with the decadent west languishing, outside of a couple notable and famous exceptions. Subsequent ones in Asia have included: Cosmo Clock ’21 (Japan, 1989, originally 353 feet, now 369 feet); Igosu 108 (Japan, 1992, originally 354 feet; now 377 feet and installed in Vietnam as the Sun Wheel); Tempozan Ferris Wheel (Japan, 1997, 369 feet); the Daikanransha (Japan, 1999, 377 feet tall); the Star of Nanchang (China, 2006, 525 feet tall); and the Singapore Flyer (Singapore, 2008, 551 feet).

Those notable exceptions in the west are not to be sneezed at however. Surely, you already know them:

Since the turn of this century, Big Ben has been eclipsed on the London skyline by the 443 foot London Eye. I’ve never been sure how I feel about that. Seems kind of…undignified where it is, somehow? I guess they weren’t going to put it in Blackpool nowadays, but isn’t someplace like that where an amusement park ride belongs? Or an amusement park NATION? To wit:

I’m proud and satisfied to report that the 550 ft. tall High Roller in Las Vegas has been the tallest Ferris Wheel in the world since its opening in 2014. This is an example of the universe beginning to make sense again. And long may she reign as such.

This is no time for complacency, however. Asia and the West were both briefly bested, and in a big way, by an 820 foot tall Ferris Wheel on the part of that hissable villain Dubai. It opened in October, 2021 but has been “closed indefinitely” since March, 2022. There seems to be no prospect of its reopening, though no explanation has been given by the Emirates. Since Dubai also hosts the tallest building in the world, and the entire city was built in a waterless desert by slave labor, I’m afraid I’m going to always root against whatever happens in that autocratic, petroleum boomtown. The shifting sands are going to cover it up again someday — not quickly enough, as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, Las Vegas is in a desert, too, which I’ve never been crazy about. I’ll always be partial to my old East Coast resorts from Coney Island and the Jersey Shore to Florida. Yet I’m afraid the weakness of patriotism is strong in me in some cultural matters, so the popularity of Vegas is okay by me. Acknowledging that it is infantile, I want to live in the country with the biggest Ferris Wheel. You know how in Escape from New York, all of Manhattan becomes a maximum security prison? I’d be all too delighted if all of North America became an amusement park. We’re partially there, but a lot of it is run-down and seedy, more like a fly-by-night carnival. A sea-to-sea Wizard of Oz theme park — that would be my utopia. Shocked? Don’t be! This entire blog is dedicated to the principle!