Gone since ‘88: What happened to the Asbury Park Ferris wheel?

If you’re an old-school Asbury Park fan, then you already know it. If you’re a Bruce Springsteen fan, you already know it.

“Beyond the palace, hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard.”

The Palace in those “Born To Run” lyrics cryptically references Palace Amusements. It was an indoor amusement center in Asbury Park at the corner of Kingsley Street and Cookman Avenue.

Palace Amusements had the famous Tillie face on its outer wall, that smiling brand that’s been replicated a gazillion times.

Other artifacts left behind since Palace Amusements' closure in 1988 have been the stuff of controversy with issues of guardianship.

Among them, the outdoor Ferris wheel.

It stood tall on the property. And Bruce Springsteen, who used a reference to the Palace in 1975’s “Born To Run,” used that property’s Ferris wheel in 1987. He made the music video for his title track “Tunnel of Love,” and it featured Palace Amusements' Ferris wheel.

SEE ALSO: Will Asbury's Paramount Theater ever get the repairs it needs?

But whatever happened to it?

The nearly 100-year-old Ferris wheel was first built in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, about 90 miles from its Asbury Park home. The last year it stood tall over Asbury Park was 1988, when Palace Amusements closed.

It was shipped to a Mississippi amusement park and used there for several years. Then it was taken apart and pieces were returned to Asbury Park in 1998.

SEE ALSO: The New Jersey amusement parks we lost and the ones still making memories

Now, all these years later, those pieces have been brought back to the town of Phoenixville, where they were made, and they've been reassembled back into the 74-foot-tall Ferris wheel the Jersey gods intended.

But it won’t be operational according to NJ.com. 

Instead, it’s standing as a monument of sorts.

It was one of four Ferris wheels built 132 years ago by the Phoenix Bridge Co., a subsidiary of the former Phoenix Iron & Steel Co. Officials say it is the only one that still has its components intact. So preservationists there in Phoenixville wanted to keep it to honor the town’s past work.

The monument display is still being built, and an official ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for June 6.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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