Whenever there's this sort of stupidity proposed for New York City, you can bet your bottom dollar that a real estate developer came up with the idea, and he's spread enough money around the halls of power to get it taken seriously.
Only in this case, the real estate developer is shocked to discover that no matter how much money he's put into some politician's pocket, they somehow turn out to be the worst business partners one can imagine. Fuck him, serves him right.
What is pictured above is the newest idea for increasing tourism on Staten Island. It is a knock-off copy of perhaps one of the worst tourist attractions on Planet Earth that it has been this mentally-diseased asshole's sorry experience to have been to, the so-called London Eye.
What the London Eye is, and what the proposed Staten Island Wheel (or whatever they intend to call it) is, is a giant Ferris wheel that rotates once every hour. People are supposed to pay good money to hop aboard, be taken up to a fantastic height and treated to a marvelous view of....whatever happens to be there to look at. In this case, it is proposed that the attraction be New York Harbor, and the New York City skyline.
It was apparently decided to put it here on the island because the rest of New York City routinely dumps whatever dumbass project the other boroughs don't want here. You know, like landfills, prisons, mental hospitals, and wind farms. We Staten Islanders are supposed to be happier than a pig in the proverbial shit about this because it will, finally, bring some much-needed tourist dollars to the Forgotten Borough. That is a load of crap, naturally, but it happens to be the official line.
First of all, we have plenty of tourist attractions, already, the City does a very bad job of publicizing them, and then the transportation system is such that it is a pain in the ass to get to them. Secondly, we don't need cash from tourist traps; we need our politicians to spend out own fucking tax dollars here. Perhaps if they did that, and Staten Island got back even half of what it pays to the city and State, we'd not need a goddamned Disneyland lite that no one in his right mind wants built, and no one in his right mind wants to ride.
The Wheel is a bad idea on several accounts.
First, having been on the London Eye and been wholly unimpressed, it's not exactly a very good tourist attraction. Now, mind you, the view of the Thames afforded by the Eye is rather good, but the problem is not the view; it's that you're stuck in a non-air-conditioned glass cage with compete strangers who often smell like refugees, and you're there for the next sixty minutes with no chance of escape. If you've never been trapped in a confined space -- say a subway train, or an elevator -- with European tourists, for whom bathing is often a secondary concern, you'll know exactly what I mean.
And that means you, Italians and Germans. And no, liberally coating yourself in enough Hugo Boss to refloat a beached whale does not make you smell any better. It's even worse if the people you happen to be trapped with are of Middle Eastern extraction since running water and soap seem to be inventions confined to the civilized world.
Which brings us to our second reason, speaking of Middle Easterners, not to build the fucking thing here: it's not just a tourist attraction, it's a target for terrorism,. Assuming the City manages to convince several thousands or tens of thousands of visitors a day to go see this thing, it'll be a magnet for Allah's Exploding Mouseketeers.
Thirdly, the tourists can already be treated to fantastic views of New York Harbor and the New York City skyline by taking the Staten Island Ferry. Which is free, by the way. I know that some clever politicians is thinking that if we put the Wheel next to the Ferry terminal in St. George, they will come, but it's more likely they will give it a pass, and just get back on the boat to go back to Manhattan...again, for free.
Fourth, it will draw little in the way of local tourism. For a start, it now costs $15 to cross the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, round trip, and nearly as much to use the New Jersey crossings. I can hardly see a cash-strapped family from Brooklyn or Perth Amboy bundling the kids up in the family car for a trip to a giant Ferris wheel that costs them $20 before they even get there with gas and tolls, and then get ripped off by the extremely expensive (and limited) restaurant and parking facilities available in the St. George ferry terminal.
Fifth, this island is still recovering from Hurricane Sandy. Hell, some residents are still recovering from Hurricane Irene. The money the taxpayer will inevitably have to pony up for this stupidity should be going to recovery, but then again, no one in a position of power cares about us now that there's no possibility of getting your face on the nightly newscast. We're not black enough, and we're supposedly too rich on the ObamaCare scale of wealth calculation..
Finally, the best reason NOT to build this piece of shit is because His Exalted Majesty Emperor Michael Bloomdouche...erm...Bloomberg, likes it. Which means he's either already gotten paid for his advocacy, or is about to. After all, it's a real estate deal, and I wouldn't doubt that Mayor Mind-Everyone's-Business had his fingers in this pie from day one.
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