Navy Pier is a 3,300-foot-long (1,010 m) pier on the shoreline of Lake Michigan, located in the Streeterville neighborhood of the Near North Side community area in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Navy Pier encompasses over 50 acres (20 ha) of shops, restaurants, live theaters, family attractions, parks, gardens, and exhibition facilities and is one of the top destinations in the Midwestern United States, drawing over nine million visitors annually. It is one of the most visited attractions in the entire Midwest and is Chicago's second-most visited tourist attraction.
A Ferris wheel is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components attached to the rim in such a way that as the wheel turns, they are kept upright, usually by gravity. Some of the largest modern Ferris wheels have cars mounted on the outside of the rim, with electric motors to independently rotate each car to keep it upright. These cars are often referred to as capsules or pods.
The original Ferris Wheel, sometimes also referred to as the Chicago Wheel, was designed and built by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. as the centerpiece of the Midway at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Since its construction, many other Ferris wheels have been constructed that were patterned after it.
The Balboa Fun Zone is a family destination located on the Balboa Peninsula in the city of Newport Beach, Orange County, California. The Balboa Fun Zone offers both an ocean and harbor experience for an estimated seven million annual visitors to Newport Beach.
The Waldo–Hancock Bridge was the first long-span suspension bridge erected in Maine, as well as the first permanent bridge across the Penobscot River downstream from Bangor. The name comes from connecting Waldo and Hancock counties. The bridge was built in 1931 and retired in 2006, when the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge was opened just a few yards away, and it was demolished in 2013.
The Sky Ride was an attraction built for the Century of Progress 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, Illinois. It was a transporter bridge designed by the bridge engineering firm Robinson & Steinman that ferried people across the lagoon, Burnham Harbor, in the center of the fair. It was located near Northerly Island, but was demolished after the Fair, having carried 4.5 million passengers. The Sky Ride had a 1,850-foot (560 m) span and two 628-foot (191 m) tall towers, making it the most prominent structure at the fair. Suspended from the span, 215 feet (66 m) above the ground, were rocket-shaped cars, each carrying 36 passengers.
Giant Wheel was an Intamin-supplied double wheel that operated at Hersheypark between 1973 and 2004. The entire structure weighed over 135 tons, and was installed in a 25-feet square slab of concrete, 10 feet thick.
Chance Rides is a roller coaster and amusement ride manufacturer. Originally founded in 1961, the current company was formed on May 16, 2002, when the former Chance Industries Inc. emerged from bankruptcy. The main office and manufacturing facility are located in Wichita, Kansas.
Skyride is a transportation attraction at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida. It carries passengers from the Edge of Africa section of the park to the Stanleyville section or vice versa. During this experience, passengers get a bird's-eye view of several attractions at the park.
The Wonder Wheel is a 150-foot-tall (46 m) eccentric Ferris wheel at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park at Coney Island in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The wheel is located on a plot bounded by West 12th Street to the west, Bowery Street to the north, Luna Park to the east, and the Riegelmann Boardwalk to the south. As with other eccentric Ferris wheels, some of the Wonder Wheel's passenger cabins are not fixed directly to the rim of the wheel, but instead slide along winding sets of rails between the hub and the rim.
Texas Star is a Ferris wheel at Fair Park in Dallas, Texas, where it operates during the annual State Fair of Texas as its most popular ride.
National Harbor is a census-designated place (CDP) in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, located along the Potomac River near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and just south of Washington, D.C. It originated as a 300-acre (1.2 km2) multi-use waterfront development. Per the 2020 census, the population was 5,509.
The Tomlinson Lift Bridge is a crossing of the Quinnipiac River in New Haven, Connecticut. The bridge forms a segment of U.S. Route 1. The Tomlinson Vertical Lift Bridge carries four lanes of traffic across New Haven Harbor and a single-track freight line owned by the Providence & Worcester Railroad that connects the waterfront with the Northeast Corridor line of Metro North and CSX. A sidewalk is present along the southern edge of the bridge.
The Myrtle Beach Skywheel is a 187-foot tall (57.0 m) observation wheel located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, that opened May 20, 2011. At the time of its opening was the second-tallest extant Ferris wheel in North America, after the 212-foot (64.6 m) Texas Star in Dallas, and the tallest wheel in the United States east of the Mississippi River. It is now the sixth-tallest Ferris wheel in the United States.
The Uniroyal Giant Tire was created by the United States Rubber Company for the 1964 New York World's Fair, where it functioned as a Ferris wheel. Since 1966 it has served as a static display in Allen Park, Michigan, alongside Interstate 94, between the Southfield Freeway interchange and Outer Drive overpass.
High Roller is a 550-foot tall (167.6 m), 520-foot (158.5 m) diameter giant Ferris wheel on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada, United States. Owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment, it opened to the public on March 31, 2014 as the world's tallest Ferris wheel. It is 9 ft (2.7 m) taller than the 541-foot (165 m) Singapore Flyer, which had held the record since 2008. Since October 2021 it is the world's second tallest Ferris wheel after Ain Dubai; however, since the latter’s closure in March 2022, High Roller has resumed its reign as the tallest operational Ferris wheel.
The Brighton Wheel, also known during its planning and construction phase as the Brighton O and the Wheel of Excellence, was a transportable Ferris wheel installation which operated from October 2011 until May 2016 on the seafront in Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. Situated below the East Cliff near Brighton Pier and built with private funding, its promoters anticipated that several hundred thousand visitors per year would experience the 12-minute ride. The wheel's location in a conservation area with many residential buildings proved controversial.
The Seattle Great Wheel is a 53-meter tall giant Ferris wheel at Pier 57 on Elliott Bay in Seattle, Washington, United States. At an overall height of 175 feet (53.3 m), it was the tallest Ferris wheel on the West Coast of the United States when it opened in June 2012.
The Hong Kong Observation Wheel is a 60-metre (197-foot) tall Ferris wheel located at the Central Harbourfront, Central, Hong Kong. It has 42 gondolas, including one VIP Gondola with leather seats and a clear glass bottom floor. All gondolas are equipped with air conditioners and communication systems. Each ride includes two to three rotations and takes about 15 minutes. Each gondola seats a maximum of eight people, other than the VIP Gondola, which seats five people.
SkyWheel Helsinki is a 40-meter tall Ferris wheel in central Helsinki, Finland. One of its gondola cabins, the SkySauna, is the world's first sauna on a Ferris wheel. It opened to the public on June 3, 2014. It was originally named the Finnair SkyWheel and its placement on Katajanokka harbor is where the airline Finnair first located its flight operations in the 1920s.
