You can ride an 11-story Ferris wheel in the middle of Times Square
Artist rendering by Anthony George
A new attraction coming to Times Square next week hopes to wheel in tourists. A 110-foot high outdoor Ferris wheel will open next Tuesday on the plaza between West 47th and West 48th Streets, as the New York Post first reported. Dubbed the Times Square Wheel, the limited experience runs from August 24 through September 12. The pop-up attraction is part of a larger effort by the Times Square Alliance to promote the neighborhood as the city continues to recover from the pandemic.
The idea to bring a Ferris wheel to Times Square came from Vito Bruno, who leads the Brooklyn-based production company AMPM Entertainment Concepts. “It’ll be the number one selfie spot in the world,” Bruno told the Post. “Times Square will get hundreds of millions of positive impressions.”
Tickets, which can be purchased online, cost $20 per ride for adults and $15 for children aged 2 to 10 years old. For $35, you can pay to skip the line. Each ride lasts between nine and 12 minutes.
As the Times Square Wheel website describes, visitors can “experience sensory overload by billions of pixels as you soar 110 feet through a canyon of spectacular billboards.” The Wheel will spin every day from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m.
“This is the time for bold ideas to celebrate our great city!” Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, said. “A Ferris Wheel in Times Square will bring New York City an incredible new way to enjoy Times Square from a completely new vantage point as we navigate these times and reflect on all we have been through this past year. Come see Times Square like you have never seen it before.”
It’s not the first time a Ferris wheel took over Times Square. As Broadway critic Standford Friedman noted, a 35-foot Ferris wheel was built in Times Square in 1946 as part of a March of Dimes fundraiser. There was also a 65-foot Ferris wheel inside Toys “R” Us until the store closed in 2015.
RELATED:
