Author: Daniel Bellino

The Wonder Wheel is a 150-foot-tall (46 m) eccentric Ferris wheel at Deno’s Wonder Wheel Amusement Park at Coney Island in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The wheel is located on a plot bounded by West 12th Street to the west, Bowery Street to the north, Luna Park to the east, and the Riegelmann Boardwalk to the south. As with other eccentric Ferris wheels, some of the Wonder Wheel’s passenger cabins are not fixed directly to the rim of the wheel, but instead slide along winding sets of rails between the hub and the rim.

Built in 1920 as one of several Ferris wheels on Coney Island, the Wonder Wheel was designed by Charles Hermann and operated by Herman J. Garms Sr. and his son Fred for six decades. Despite the subsequent economic decline of Coney Island, the Wonder Wheel continued to operate each summer through the 20th century. In 1983, Herman Garms’s son Fred sold the ride to the Vourderis family, who restored the attraction and continue to run the wheel as of 2023. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Wonder Wheel as an official New York City landmark in 1989, and minor modifications were subsequently made to the attraction.

HISTORY 

At the time of the Wonder Wheel’s construction, Coney Island was one of the largest amusement areas in the United States. The first Ferris wheel in Coney Island was built for nearby Steeplechase Park in 1894 and was erroneously billed as “The World’s Largest”. Several variations of the Ferris wheel were erected in the neighborhood in the 1900s and 1910s. The Wonder Wheel was unusual in that only one-third of its 24 cars were stationary, while the other two-thirds rolled on tracks within the wheel itself.

The Wonder Wheel was designed by Charles Hermann as an improvement on G.W.G. Ferris’s giant wheel, and it was built for Herman J. Garms Sr. between 1918 and 1920 by the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company. Coney Island landowner William J. Ward provided the land for the Wonder Wheel’s construction. Garms, who had no formal financial experience, sold stock to family, other Coney Island business holders, and steelworkers. Hermann sold all his shares in the wheel to raise money for construction and operation. Alfred (Fred) Garms, Herman Garms’s son, recalled that his father employed anyone who was willing to help erect the ride, teaching them how to construct the wheel. After the local ironworkers’ union heard about the project, they attempted to force the workers to join the union. The elder Garms named all of the workers as stockholders of the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company, preventing them from being forced to unionize. 

The wheel first opened on Memorial Day in 1920.  Hermann originally called it the “Dip-the-Dip”, promising to combine in his new invention “the thrill of a scenic railway, the fun of a Ferris wheel, and the excitement of the Chute-the-Chutes”. To help with the Wonder Wheel’s upkeep, the Garms family lived under the Wonder Wheel during the summers. With the success of the Wonder Wheel, the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company hoped to build more “wonder wheels” on the East Coast of the United States by the mid-1920s. Fred Garms worked on the ride as a ticket operator during the summer in the 1920s, when he was a child. By the time Fred had graduated high school in the early 1930s, he worked on the ride year-round, maintaining it.

After the ride’s construction cost had been paid off, Herman Garms bought out most of the Eccentric Ferris Wheel Company’s stockholders, then reduced the size of the corporation to a small number of people.

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