New York Wheel’s four 500-ton legs arrive in New York harbor

Despite its opening being pushed to April 2018, the New York Wheel is marking a major milestone–the arrival of its first physical components. According to a press release, the Staten Island Ferris wheel’s four legs arrive today to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (SBMT). When complete, the 60-story, 630-foot wheel will be the world’s tallest, so it makes sense that each leg weighs in at a whopping 500 tons and measures 18 feet wide and 275 feet tall.

As 6sqft reported in July, when a shipment of crane parts for the wheel came through the port it was the first to arrive at the site in more than 10 years, “revitalizing it as ‘a working maritime port facility’ that will hopefully create hundreds of jobs.”

The latest shipment arrived yesterday from Italy, where the legs were manufactured and split into two pieces each for transport (eight pieces total). According to Staten Island Live, the legs plus installation cost about $15 million of the $580 million project. They’ll remain at the SBMT until they make their way to Staten Island by barge. New York Wheel founder and CEO Rich Marin told Live, “This lay down area is where our Wheel construction people will do the prepping of all of the components. Everything they use will come in through that terminal. There is a regular dock there. We don’t have a regular dock at the Wheel site; we have a jetty.”

The next shipment will occur throughout the month, and it will be the four pedestals on which the legs will sit. They’re coming from Montreal by truck and are “110 tons of very complicated, welded steel that are getting fabricated at one of the best steel fabricators in the world.” They’ll arrive in New Jersey and then get put on a barge to the Wheel site where they’ll eventually be cemented down.

Check out this #timelapse of the wheel’s 500-ton legs arriving in #NYC #statenisland #brooklyn #construction #engineering #progress #onebigwheel

A video posted by New York Wheel (@nywheel) on Oct 4, 2016 at 6:57pm PDT

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Photos of the legs in Italy courtesy of the New York Wheel