Beijing to Get a Big Ferris Wheel, and Local Media is Excited

Steven Schwankert | Mar 18, 2016 1:00 pm | 2 comments | 3510 reads

Beijing will have a large ferris wheel before October 1 – and local media seems very excited about it.

"Beijing to get Ferris wheel ... finally" is the way the Xinhua News Agency reported it in English. The wheel in question will be built at Shijingshan Amusement Park out west, and will stand 100 meters high when completed, almost double the height of the previous ferris wheel there, which was 55 meters.

The wheel will have 42 capsules and can ferris (is that a verb?) 7,000 people per day, Xinhua said.

Perhaps they think the public is still smarting from the Beijing Great Wheel debacle, which was supposed to be the world's tallest ferris wheel at 208 meters, but was never completed.

The big wheel is named for George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., who built the first one.

The ferris wheel will be the only operating amusement of its type when completed, with a target launch date of October 1. If you've felt that your Beijing experience has been missing a ferris wheel ride, now would be a good time to go and get in line for it.

More stories by this author here.

Email: stevenschwankert@thebeijinger.com
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Re: Beijing to Get a Big Ferris Wheel, and Local Media is...
Posted Mar 18, 2016 3:09pm by Scott DeVoy Su

I remember going to Chaoyang Park in 2008 and seeing the proposed construction site for the Beijing Great Wheel; the promotional imagery I saw, which was plastered on billboards, definitely got me prematurely excited. The photo below (taken from the Economist) shows the scale of the proposed Beijing Great Wheel next to other famous ferris wheels. I honestly believed -- and this was during the time of the Olympics -- that Beijing was capable of building anything. It's said to say, but I guess in the end, it was all just a pipe-dream.

Re: Beijing to Get a Big Ferris Wheel, and Local Media is...
Posted Mar 18, 2016 2:40pm by Scott DeVoy Su

According to Wikipedia, 5 of the 10 tallest ferris wheels are in China.