The New York City skyline is one of the most famous and breathtaking in the world.

It’s going to get even better and more dramatic in the near future as the city has announced that the world’s biggest Ferris wheel will soon be built here and added to the scene.

The Ferris wheel will be erected in Staten Island, which is one of New York City’s five famous boroughs.

New-York-City-Skyline

 The new attraction is going to reach 625 feet into the air and will cost the city about $230 million, but it will be privately financed so the taxpayers don’t have to pay for it. The ride will be called the New York Wheel and it will be nestled in Staten Island and will overlook the historic Statue of Liberty as well as the colorful Manhattan skyline. The Ferris wheel will be bigger than England’s London Eye and Singapore’s Flyer.

Local tourism officials are predicting that the new attraction will bring in about 4.5 million visitors each year. The wheel will be designed to carry approximately 1,440 passengers at one time. Plans are also in the works for a 200-room hotel on the site as well as an outlet shopping mall that will feature 100 different stores.

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, said it will be one of the world’s most unique attractions and he hopes the Ferris wheel will be built and working by the year 2015. New Yorkers are used to doing things on a grand scale so the new ride fits right in. New York is home to the largest population inAmerica as well as the nation’s busiest mass-transit system and more.

However, Staten Island is the least-populated borough in the city as well as its most remote. Senator Charles Schumer said the new Ferris wheel will be to Staten Island what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris and will soon become a New York icon. The city usually attracts about 50 million visitors each year and this could see that number rise quite a bit.

As well as bringing in more tourist revenue, the Ferris wheel, hotel, and shopping mall are expected to create about 1,100 fulltime permanent jobs. In addition, developers said they will gladly pay $2.5 million in rent to the city each year. One of the most famous attractions currently in Staten Island is the popular Staten Island Ferry, which can be traveled for free. It’s estimated that two million people take a trip on the ferry each year, and these are just the tourists. The ferry also transports millions of New Yorkers across the water on an annual basis.

However, many of the visitors simply take a ride in the ferry to get a close up view of the Statue of Liberty, but don’t disembark it to explore the borough and it has suffered from it. Some residents feel the Ferris wheel may not be as popular as predicted since visitors can get excellent views of the sprawling metropolis from many other sites, such as the Empire State Building.

If you do venture into Staten Island though, you’ll find about 470,000 people living there as well as several attractions, cultural sites, and the Staten Island Zoo. It’s well worth a visit and will be even more enticing once the New York Wheel is up and running.

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