Dismantling Of Navy Pier's Ferris Wheel Well Underway
(CBS) -- The dismantling of the Navy Pier Ferris wheel continues this weekend.
When the Ferris wheel went up, it was like putting a giant Erector set together, says Brian Murphy, the chief operating officer at Navy Pier.
And now that it's coming down, you just reverse the whole thing, he says.
"All the gondolas have been taken off. All the lights have been taken off, and this morning we began taking down the steel. I'd say we have about 20 percent of the wheel already removed," Murphy tells WBBM's Steve Miller.
"Hopefully, with weather, we'll continue that throughout the weekend and in the next several days we'll have the entire wheel down," he adds.
If the weather cooperates, Murphy says the Ferris wheel will take on a half-moon appearance this weekend.
And the suggestion that the whole thing would be a lot easier if they just rolled it into the lake?
"I've heard it," he laughs, "but that's not happening."
Murphy says crews are removing the 40 triangles of steel that make up the Ferris wheel.
The trickiest part of the dismantling?
"Probably the center hub - the main axis of the wheel," he says. "We'll need several different cranes to be brought up to the loading dock and we'll have to hold up the center hub and the eight legs that support it."
Murphy says construction of the new wheel, which will be 33 percent taller, will begin in mid-January.