<P> The Ferris wheel and cafe on the Prater were owned by a Jew, Eduard Steiner, who was murdered at Auschwitz . </P> <P> It was built with 30 gondolas, but was severely damaged in World War II and when it was rebuilt only 15 gondolas were replaced . </P> <P> The wheel is driven by a circumferential cable which leaves the wheel and passes through the drive mechanism under the base, and its spokes are steel cables, in tension . </P> <P> When the 64.75 - metre (212 ft) tall Wiener Riesenrad was constructed in 1897, both the original 80.4 - metre (264 ft) Ferris Wheel in the US (constructed 1893, demolished 1906) and the 94 - metre (308 ft) Great Wheel in England (constructed 1895, demolished 1907) were taller . The 100 - metre (328 ft) Grande Roue de Paris, constructed in 1900, was taller still . However, when the Grande Roue de Paris was demolished in 1920, the Riesenrad became the world's tallest extant Ferris wheel, and it remained so for the next 65 years, until the construction of the 85 - metre (279 ft) Technostar in Japan in 1985 . </P>

Where is the world's oldest operating ferris wheel