You humble co-editor of this contest lives about 10 KM from this location, in fact, I drive by it every day on my way to work. Even with that fact, I was unaware of the history of this wheel.
This Ferris wheel started life as the center point of the Santa Monica Pier. It is seen in many commercials and not just a few movies –“The Net” with Sandra Bullock comes to mind first. Here’s clip from another movie it was in (starting around 1:42).
When the Pier replaced their wheel, they sold the old one on Ebay for $134,000 to a man from Oklahoma City. He had the wheel shipped to Kansas and refurbished it, replacing all of the lighting with state-of-the-art LED and controllers. After 8 years on the ground, it was finally installed in an area being rehabilitated from an old downtown airport in 2016.
Those who joined me on my way to work included:
- Martin de Bock
- Eloy Cano
- Rob de Wolff
- Paul Voestermans
- Garfield
- Phil Ower
- Lighthouse
- hhgygy
- AVE.C@ES.AR
- David Kozina
and those late to work, but getting a point anyway included:
- Ashwini Agrawal
- Gillian B
- Jesus Rodriguez
- Walter_V_R
- gscrp
- Hilde Lambeir