The New York Wheel, which will soon lure hoards of tourists to Staten Island (maybe?), crossed yet another milestone last week, with two of its four pedestals arriving at the riverside construction site.
Once the other two pedestals land later this week, the wheel will officially have its “first full structure” at the site of what’s to become the world’s tallest observation wheel. The pedestals are arriving by barge, having traveled down the Hudson from Montreal to the $3 million temporary construction dock in Staten Island, built specifically to greet them. The wheel’s 500-ton legs are still being processed at South Brooklyn Marine Terminal.
The New York Wheel is one of the linchpins of a $1.2 billion project to revamp Staten Island’s North Shore, and is expected to cost around $590 million. Its developers are optimistic about the wheel’s appeal: once it finally opens in the spring of 2018, the wheel is expected to get more than three million visitors a year, and its backers think it could bring in more revenue than the Empire State Building’s observation deck. In the spirit of observation, we’ll see.
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