La Grande Roue de Paris, 1900

The second in our series of Parisian-themed prints, La Grande Roue de Paris, 1900 (Great Wheel of Paris) returns to early 20th-century world's fair culture. World's fair attractions of that era seemed to thrive on a spirit of one-upmanship: Ferris built his 1893 wheel to steal the thunder of the 1889 Exposition Universelle's Eiffel Tower. The Frenchies countered back at the Yanks with the 1900 La Grande Roue wheel pictured in this original photochrom, which bested Ferris' wheel by coming in at 328 feet tall (his only measured 264 feet). La Grande Roue held the tallest title for a whopping 90 years; for contemporary contrast, the current record holder is the Singapore Flyer at 541 feet. During the exposition, the wheel stood near the Eiffel Tower on the Avenue de Suffern, adjacent to the Galerie des Machines (shown to the right of the wheel in the image), a vast iron and glass hall displaying engines and other wonders of the age.