Fueling Tomorrow's Nightmares

Coney Island' s Wonder Wheel is teeny-weeny compared to the latest crop of high-tech Ferris wheels.

How boring must ordinary life be, with the sun and the moon and the planets and the four seasons and flowers and babies growing inside of average women and then bursting forth as a whole new person that will eventually walk and talk and do everything we all do, that millions of people seek out manufactured thrills lasting but a few minutes? Pretty boring I guess, since the world of amusement parks is almost as big as the world of non-amusement parks. Even luxury cruise ships, where one can gaze out at the pristine waters and contemplate God in the heavens or the mysteries of the deep are now equipped with roller coasters, water slides, putting ranges and rock-climbing walls, lest a paying customer complains over not having enough "to do."

The planned Staten Island behemoth.

But that's old news. Now the War of the Ferris Wheels is heating up, with a new one being built on the shores of Chicago's Lake Michigan. It will have glass-enclosed, air-conditioned gondolas complete with TV screens and reach 196-feet into the sky. That sounds like a pretty big deal to me, but turns out to be just a so-so deal. In 2017, a 630-foot tall wheel will open in Staten Island overlooking New York Harbor. As tall as a 58-story skyscraper, it will have 36 "capsules," each holding 40 people for a total of 1,440 passengers per ride. A ride will take 38 minutes, so be sure to go to the bathroom first and don't forget to pack those extra tranquilizers, whatever brand you like. The cost for this silliness is estimated to be 500 million US dollars, including 7 million just to light the thing up at night. Sadly, the coming Staten Island monster will not be the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, as construction on a 689-foot wheel in Dubai is already underway.

I was just short of permanently scarred as a child by too many rides on Coney Island's Wonder Wheel, now a mere joke by today's standards: "Standing 150 feet tall -- the equivalent of a 15-story building -- and weighing 200 tons, the WONDER WHEEL has 24 cars, of which 16 are swinging and 8 are stationary. The swinging cars slide on a serpentine track towards the hub of the Wheel, and as the Wheel turns they slide towards the circumference. Each car holds 6 people for a total ride capacity of 144." Wimpy as it now sounds, I still have nightmares about that ride, mostly involving the swinging car coming loose and sliding off into the Atlantic Ocean below. Lord only knows why my parents always chose the swinging car.