Friday, January 17, 2014

The DC Eye

Everyone in DC has their pants in a twist over this 175 foot tall Ferris wheel on the Potomac. Of course like everything "in" DC, it's not actually in the District of Columbia, so residents really don't get a say.
Still, many are complaining about the impact the National Harbor attraction will have on the skyline. 


What skyline? Amirite? 

Okay, DC kind of has a monumental, European-esque (i.e. Socialist) skyline, but National Harbor, the massive, attraction just outside the Beltway, across the Potomac from Old Town Alexandria, is far from anything resembling a city.

Of course the funny thing is, it's only 175 feet, roughly 15 floors, or as tall as the 20th tallest building in Rhode Island. It's really is just a big Ferris wheel. As Cracked pointed out a few years ago, second rate, copycat structures from around the world can make your city look like an attention whore.


Citing space needle ripoffs from New Zealand to Texas, Cracked would suggest that the Beltway's attempt to augment the region's image by replicating a stunted incarnation of the London Eye - which is two and a half times as high - doesn't so much distinguish a skyline as it makes it look like a poser. 

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