Exploring Chaoyang Park Ferris Wheel, the Colossal Attraction That Never Was

Have you visited the largest Ferris wheel in the world? At a record-breaking 208 meters (682ft), it dwarves the High Roller in Las Vegas by 50 meters. It features 48 air-conditioned capsules holding up to 40 people each, a memorable location for weddings and business meetings offering views of the western mountains, and even the Great Wall on a clear day. All of this a stone’s throw from Beijing’s CBD. Or at least it would have been had it ever gotten off the ground.

Walk past the surfing Confucius

Yes, welcome to the Chaoyang Park Ferris Wheel AKA the Beijing Skyview, Beijing’s colossal circular letdown. You’ve perhaps jogged through Chaoyang Park a dozen times in your lycra, past the surfing Confucius, but never spotted the big wheel. Well, like a lot of the capital’s most closely-guarded secrets, hidden places can only be seen from above.

The location of the Ferris wheel foundations as seen via Google Maps

Scan Chaoyang Park on Google Maps and you’ll notice a large area of the park which is off-limits to the public and a structure that looks ominously like a gigantic skull. These are the incomplete foundations of the decade-long abandoned mega project. The Beijing Skyview was scheduled to open on Aug 1, 2008, one week in advance of the Beijing Olympics. But that big day was never to come.

The project was racked with delays, pushing the opening date back to 2009, but by 2010 The Great Beijing Wheel Co. had gone into receivership after breaching the terms of their loan. Strangely, banners around the complex give the impression it might open any time soon.

Oddly enough, the promotional materials for the Skyview look as new as the day they were put up

A decade later, the wheel which should’ve made more than 150,000 rotations by now, lays with its broken spokes scattered in the grass like a discarded Mobike. Despite its deathly appearance, the flooded framework of the foundations is home to flocks of ducks that use the edifice to escape a good Beijing roasting, occasional herons practicing tai chi in the rust-tinged water, and up in their eccentric nests formed of twigs and lost kites, magpies squawk a warning to intruders. Clambering over the fallen foundations, pheasants explode out of the undergrowth. All of this as Michael Bolton’s voice floats over the fence from the park’s speaker system.

Pieces of the Skyview lie around rusting

Foundations still stand but are unlikely to ever be used

Birds have made their home in the water and shade

Water fills the bottom of the concrete foundations

So, next time you’re exploring Chaoyang Park, why not hop the fence and take a turn around Beijing’s record-breaking Ferris wheel failure. You won’t see a bigger non-attraction this year.

Photos: Burbex Brin