February 17, 2013
The 688-foot record-setting wheel would beat the proposed 630-foot New York Wheel on Staten Island's North Shore and would be completed earlier in 2015. Developers say NYC has Dubai beat on surrounding scenery.
February 17, 2013
The 688-foot record-setting wheel would beat the proposed 630-foot New York Wheel on Staten Island's North Shore and would be completed earlier in 2015. Developers say NYC has Dubai beat on surrounding scenery.
United Arab Emirates leaders overlook a model of the Dubai Eye.
It’s a wheely big deal.
A day after Mayor Bloomberg talked up his administration’s plan to build the world’s tallest Ferris wheel, Dubai revealed that it will build one that’s even bigger.
The Dubai Eye will rise 68 stories – 688 feet — once completed, 58 feet taller than the wheel planned for Staten Island, overlooking New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty.
It had been a point of pride at City Hall that the New York Wheel would be the world’s biggest. But if they were disappointed by the news from Dubai, local officials did not show it.
"We never entered into this without assuming that someone was going to try to build a bigger wheel," New York Wheel CEO Richard Marin insisted.
An artist's rendering of the proposed New York Wheel on the North Shore of Staten Island.
The race to the sky began in earnest after London opened up its Ferris wheel to rave reviews and millions of visitors in 1999.
Standing at 443 feet, it became an iconic part of the London skyline and the most popular tourist attraction in Britain.
Soon, the Ferris wheel competition began to resemble the never-ending battle to build the world’s tallest skyscraper.
In 2006, the city of Nanchang, China topped the London wheel only to be defeated two years later by the 541-foot-tall Singapore Flyer, which soars above the sprawling Southeast Asian city-state. An even bigger wheel — called the High Roller – is set to open by year’s end in Las Vegas.
The Dubai Eye, as the world's tallest Ferris wheel, is set to join the world's tallest skyscraper and largest mall on the city's list of superlatives.
The New York Wheel is part of a $500 million commercial and residential development that City Hall hopes will transform the Staten Island waterfront.
It will carry up to 1,440 people per ride and is expected to entertain 4.5 million people a year. It will be built with private money, with an opening date of Dec. 31, 2015.
But by then, the New York Wheel will have lost any bragging rights. The Dubai Eye — part of a planned $1.6 billion luxury resort on a man-made island in the Persian Gulf city — will have opened earlier in the year.
Although construction of the New York Wheel is not scheduled to start until next year, officials involved in the project said they have no intention of going back to the drawing board.
Trying to outdo Dubai would put the New York Eye behind schedule and over its $250 million budget, they said.
And, anyway, the New York Wheel will have something that Dubai, for all its oil riches, will never be able to buy, said Nick Kelly, spokesman for the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
“Nothing will top the New York Wheel's sweeping views of the greatest city in the world," he said.
Courtesy: NYDN
