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Alan Amati
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Ferris' Wheel
Ferris' Wheel

The 150-foot (45.7 m) tall Navy Pier Ferris Wheel, which was manufactured by Vekoma and opened on July 1, 1995. It operates year-round, weather permitting, and has 40 gondolas, each seating up to 6 passengers. Its 40 spokes, spanning a diameter of 140 feet (42.7 m), are illuminated in the evenings.

The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel, was designed and constructed by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

With a height of 80.4 metres (264 ft) it was the largest attraction at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, where it opened to the public on June 21, 1893. It was intended to rival the 324-metre (1,063 ft) Eiffel Tower, the centerpiece of the 1889 Paris Exposition.

Ferris was a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bridge-builder. He began his career in the railroad industry and then pursued an interest in bridge building. Ferris understood the growing need for structural steel and founded G.W.G. Ferris & Co. in Pittsburgh, a firm that tested and inspected metals for railroads and bridge builders.
The wheel rotated on a 71-ton, 45.5-foot axle comprising what was at that time the world's largest hollow forging, manufactured in Pittsburgh by the Bethlehem Iron Company and weighing 89,320 pounds, together with two 16-foot-diameter (4.9 m) cast-iron spiders weighing 53,031 pounds. There were 36 cars, each fitted with 40 revolving chairs and able to accommodate up to 60 people, giving a total capacity of 2,160. The wheel carried some 38,000 passengers daily and took 20 minutes to complete two revolutions, the first involving six stops to allow passengers to exit and enter and the second a nine-minute non-stop rotation, for which the ticket holder paid 50 cents.

The Exposition ended in October 1893, and the wheel closed in April 1894 and was dismantled and stored until the following year. It was then rebuilt on Chicago's North Side, near Lincoln Park, next to an exclusive neighborhood. This prompted William D. Boyce, then a local resident, to file a Circuit Court action against the owners of the wheel to have it removed, but without success. It operated there from October 1895 until 1903, when it was again dismantled, then transported by rail to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair and finally destroyed by controlled demolition using dynamite on May 11, 1906.

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Taken on: August 9, 2014
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Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/14.0, 1/125 sec, 70mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS
Aperture: f/14.0
Exposure Time: 0.008 sec (1/125)
Focal Length: 70mm
ISO: 100
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Flash: Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program: Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode: Auto
Metering Mode: Multi-segment
White Balance: Auto
Color Space: sRGB
Software: Aperture 3.5.1
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