National Harbor is Putting Up a Big Ferris Wheel Because Nothing Screams "FUN!" Like a $15 Ride on a Ferris Wheel

WaPo – A city known for a monumental skyline marked by a sober granite obelisk and a stately cast-iron dome is getting a piece of good, old American razzle-dazzle just outside its borders. In April, a $15 million brightly lit 175-foot-tall Ferris wheel will begin slowly spinning visitors on 12- to 15-minute rides as they overlook the Potomac River from the burgeoning $4?billion playground known as National Harbor, seven miles south of the District in Prince George’s County. “When you have a place like National Harbor or Washington, you need new things, iconic things. Not piddly things. When you do something like this wheel, you are going to get people from Richmond driving here, people from Philadelphia driving here,” said Milt Peterson, the real estate magnate behind National Harbor. Peterson said he envisions the attraction, easily visible from flights arriving at or departing from Reagan National Airport, becoming as much a part of region’s skyline as the Washington Monument or U.S. Capitol. In mid-2016, it will be joined by a $925?million MGM resort and casino. “Just as Dubai is planning for the massive Dubai Eye wheel in 2015, now National Harbor? I’m a Washingtonian and a traditionalist,” she said in an e-mail. “I still prefer postcards of the Washington skyline celebrating the iconic memorial to George Washington over a modern-day tribute to George Washington Ferris Jr., inventor of the Ferris wheel. I hope we are not being taken back to the one-ups of Chicago and Paris in the late 1800s.” Peterson said he borrowed the idea from Paris, where he visited the 200-foot Roue de Paris with his wife in 2007. His 17-story version, the Capital Wheel, is being built on a 770-foot-long pier extending into the Potomac. It will have 42 gondolas equipped with sound systems, air conditioning and heating. Each gondola will fit about eight people, who will pay $15 each for two revolutions.

I have no idea how it happened, but the ferris wheel is the hottest craze since beanie babies. Every city is building one of these monstrosities. And ferris wheels suck. I’ve been on one, one time, and thought it was the worst thing in the world. Nothing was fun about it, and the whole time I was just waiting for that slow fucking wheel to get stuck or for me to get struck by lightning. But every city is building one. The thing is, I’m such a sucker for views. Views of cities and skylines are cool. But ferris wheels are awful. So what these cities should be building instead are just giant hills. Big ass hills with a ski lift or elevators to take you to the top, you see the view and are like “fuck yeah buildings!” and then you can sled down. If they can put an outdoor ice rink in LA, they can put fake snow in DC and let you ski or sled or snowboard down. Beats getting stuck in a ferris wheel.

PS: Vegas is building not one, but two, ginormous ferris wheels. The amount of fucking that will happen on those will be in the millions of sexes per day.