NEW YORK | (Staten Island) New York Wheel | 625 FT

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Duck From NY

Staten Island has some rather tall hills, the tallest being only 200 feet shorter than the wheel. As the passengers go further up, they'll be curious to see what pops up South over Todt Hill. It will be interesting for people from afar to get an idea of the area surrounding the urban core of our "global capital". I imagine if I were born elsewhere, I'd be pleasantly surprised to see steep tree-lined streets with old Victorian homes so close to the urban core.

A lot of people don't know that the highest point in New York City (on the ground) is in Staten Island. That topographical makeup will also be on display.



Some quotes from a lengthy article...
http://observer.com/2012/10/big-rich-mar...frica-israel-staten-island-ferris-wheel/

The Ups and Downs of Rich Marin, the Ex-Banker Building the World’s Biggest Ferris Wheel
On Big Rich's Wild Ride, what comes around goes around









By Matt Chaban 10/02/12

Rich Marin is big. For more than three decades, he dominated Wall Street, creating some of the industry’s most exotic investments, making billions for his clients, and millions for himself. One of his minions blew a hole in the side of Bankers Trust, a firm Mr. Marin helped transform into a derivatives powerhouse, and still he held on for the ride, becoming the youngest managing director ever at the bank. It all came crashing down five years ago, when the hedge funds he oversaw at Bear Stearns imploded. The rest of the world followed within the year. But there was Mr. Marin, standing amid the wreckage, helping rescue an overzealous Israeli diamond magnate who had plowed $3 billion into prime U.S. real estate just as the frothing market froze over. He rescued the firm, only to be unceremoniously fired two years to the day after he joined.

Now Rich Marin wants to build the world’s largest ferris wheel—in Staten Island, naturally—and the mayor just gave him his blessing. Did we mention he is big? At the announcement of the project last Thursday, Mr. Marin absolutely dwarfed Mayor Bloomberg and Senator Chuck Schumer, along with the other dignitaries gathered at the ferry terminal. But despite his imposing size—he stands 6-foot-5 and is built like an offensive lineman—Mr. Marin is probably one of the gentlest people on the Street. His plan, then, to build a 625-foot ferris wheel next to the Staten Island Ferry is not some Spruce Goose, Master of the Universe complex acting itself out in New York Harbor. It’s just business. He got a call, many calls, actually, within days of again being fired, on December 10, 2010, from Africa Israel USA, the real estate firm he had helped rescue after the bubble burst. One was from a small investment outfit that had tried repeatedly to get a giant observation wheel built in New York, most recently on Governors Island or in the Seaport. “They wanted someone with experience, and I had been a CEO in numerous capacities, I knew real estate, I knew finance, they thought I could get the job done,” Mr. Marin said. And so he has. In less than two years, Mr. Marin lined up financial backers to realize the $250 million project while convincing the city to embrace the idea—not much of a challenge, really, given the Bloomberg administration’s flamboyant streak, along with its anxious rivalry with London, where the first modern observation wheel opened in 1999. If it opens on New Year’s Eve 2015, as is currently the plan, the New York Wheel could help cement tourism downtown and usher in a new era for sleepy Staten Island.

.........Mr. Marin, who was wearing a navy blazer, light blue jeans and brown leather loafers, explained that the Statue of Liberty alone draws some 4 million tourists a year while another 2 million ride the Staten Island Ferry. The city has always struggled with how it might get tourists, and their wallets, off the free boat ride and beyond the St. George Terminal. The Staten Island Yankees have a stadium here, but aside from a few historic buildings, the borough’s 9/11 memorial and a nice view of Manhattan, that’s about it. Mr. Marin believes the appeal of his wheel will be impossible to resist, even at $20 a pop. “Do you have kids?” he asked (not yet, but in three years, who knows?). “So you’re on the ferry, and the wheel is getting bigger and bigger. Your 5-year-old, he’s barely tall enough to reach past the railing, but he sure can see this wheel, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. He starts asking, he’s begging, ‘Can we go? Can we go? I wanna go on the ferris wheel!’ I think daddy is going to have a harder and harder time not going on that wheel.” (On second thought, why rush parenthood?)

And if the wheel isn’t enough of an attraction, the Bloomberg administration has fallen back on that most reliable of tourist activities: shopping. The city encouraged the New York Wheel team to partner with BFC Partners, a developer that has made a habit of getting in on the ground floor of most of the city’s development waves of the past few decades: the East Village, East Harlem, Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn. Now, the firm has plans to bring New York City its very own outlet mall.

The wheel is being designed by Starneth, a boutique Danish firm responsible for the London Eye, as well as the Singapore Flyer and one of two competing wheels in Vegas. But Mr. Marin said the Staten Island wheel is just the beginning—a flashy beacon meant to draw people to his real attraction, a sustainability museum, located in an 11,000-square-foot lot on his half of the 14-acre site. Indeed, Mr. Marin conceives of the entire project as a giant lesson in building a cleaner planet. And not just through green roofs and solar arrays. In summer, the observationpods—which operate on proprietary gyroscopes to remain level—will collect condensation as they make their 38-minute circuit, depositing two gallons each into the grey water system that runs the site’s toilets.

“This will be a world-class exhibition,” Mr. Marin said intently. “This is more than just the wheel. I think of this as a world heritage site in the making.”