The Phoenix Wheel returned to Phoenixville on Saturday, more than 130 years after it was first forged there, in what the Schuylkill River Heritage Center is calling the culmination of a nearly two-decade restoration effort, writes Emily Neil for WHYY.
What once carried riders high above the Jersey Shore now stands still in the Pennsylvania borough where it was born.
About 1,000 people turned out to witness the unveiling of the 78-foot-tall Ferris wheel, manufactured in 1893 by the Phoenix Iron and Steel Company and the last surviving example of the original four Phoenix Wheels produced. Town officials claim it is the oldest standing wheel in the world.
The wheel spent most of its life far from home. Installed in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1895, it became the centerpiece of Palace Amusements, drawing visitors with views of the shoreline and, by one account, more than 150 colored lights illuminating its frame at night.
It even made a cameo in Bruce Springsteen’s 1987 “Tunnel of Love” music video.
Then, in 1989, it came down. The wheel bounced from Mississippi to South Jersey before the Schuylkill River Heritage Center acquired its original components in 2008 and set out to bring it back.
With many original drawings lost, craftsmen and engineers measured and reconstructed thousands of pieces, creating replacement components where needed to bring the structure back to life.
“I will bet you there are many people in this community … whose great-great-grandparents worked on this, and it’s just so amazing to me that it comes back home,” said Chester County Commissioner Marian Moskowitz.
The Phoenix Wheel now stands near Borough Hall, not as a working ride but as a sculpture honoring the industrial legacy of the borough that made it.
For more on the wheel’s long journey home and the people who made its restoration possible, read the full story at WHYY.
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