My Modern Met put together a really beautiful collection of long-exposure images of the Seattle Great Wheel** at times when it puts on its fancy clothes for holidays and the like. God, I love stuff like this. I’ve never been up in this thing, but I will soon, and I’ll bring you along. Also maybe a flask – I hear it’s pretty slow going.
Fun fact: one of the highlights of the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis was the 26-story Ferris Wheel, which could hold 2,000 people. It was the same Ferris wheel featured at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.*** However, after its second life in St. Louis, it was BLOWN THE FUCK UP, and only its axle remained. Only no one knows where it is – people believe it may still be in Forest Park, where it’s not out of the ordinary to find weird artifacts from the World’s Fair. But a GIANT FREAKING AXLE remains out there, unaccounted for. This is an open case, people! This is still a thing being discussed!
World’s Fairs are weird things. I wish they still happened in all their hopeful, disposable glory.
*Eesh, sorry.
**Yes, that is the name of the Seattle Ferris wheel when it’s at home.
***P.S. Go read Devil in the White City. I’m serious, get to it, now.