Reviving History With the Power of Art - The Phoenix Wheel
Meet Elyssa Hilton, a Phoenixville artist utilizing her background in art and design to raise money for the historic Phoenix Wheel project.
Website: elyssadraws.com | Instagram: @elyssa.hilton
Emily: What is the Phoenix Ferris wheel?
Elyssa: The 1895 Phoenix Wheel is the oldest existing ferris wheel in the world and the only remaining ferris wheel built by Phoenix Steel. At the time, their bridge business was booming, so they only manufactured 4 wheels. From its creation in 1895 all the way to 1989, the wheel operated at Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, NJ. It was then moved to Wonderland Entertainment Park in Gautier, Mississippi from 1990 to 1998. After that park closed, it was sold to a person in New Jersey where it spent a few years on a golf course, unassembled. In 2008, Barbara Cohen and the Schuylkill River Heritage Center learned about it, bought it, and put it into storage here in Phoenixville for the future. It's been a project many years in the making. It will be reassembled on Bridge Street, just west of the Borough Hall parking lot, and given signage, parking, and its own trailhead.
Future location of the Phoenix Wheel.
Emily: What has been your role in the project?
Elyssa: I started working with Barbara Cohen at the Schuylkill River Heritage Center in 2018. At that time, I found out about the wheel project. I had no idea what the blue baskets scattered around town were and when it was explained to me I was floored. As someone who was born and raised in New Jersey, but who also deeply loves Phoenixville, I felt a huge sense of pride and conviction that I needed to help see this project to completion in any way I could. Barbara asked me to join the fundraising committee and I've been working with her and the other super cool members on it for about 4 years now. There has been a very long silent phase of the project as the remaining big hurdles were cleared. Now that those are behind us, we can get the word out and fundraise in earnest. I've been assisting with my creative talents to design a logo and merchandise for fundraising. I've also completed my own personal project that's connected to it, a triptych of posters that showcase the Phoenix Wheel at different stages in its life. I'm donating all of the profits from those poster sales towards the wheel's restoration via the SRHC, as well as giving back to the Asbury Park Historical Society. They've been a great help for research and even gifted the SRHC artifacts from Palace Amusements.
Emily: What was your inspiration behind the three different poster designs?
Elyssa: Commercial architecture is my number one inspiration. It's what first ignited my artistic spark as a child. So this was hugely exciting for me to think about. I had the idea to celebrate the wheel at different points in its life: when it was first made, its heyday in Asbury Park, and its future here in Phoenixville. I wanted each design to be distinct from each other and to draw from those times and places.
Beginnings - The first poster was done in a late 19th century engraving style, and I tried to depict it as it would have looked with its original observation tower. This took a bit of sleuthing to uncover how all the parts went together and explains why the remaining support bases of the wheel are as big as they are.
Heyday - The second poster was supposed to be in a simpler mid-century style but it was determined to grow into a more detailed version than I originally pictured. Its fonts and colors are taken from the actual Palace Amusements building so that it felt reflected in the whole poster even if it wasn't depicted outright.
Brilliant Tomorrow - The third poster is inspired by the iconic Greetings from Asbury Park postcard that was the cover of the eponymous Bruce Springsteen debut album. This was the first poster that I started drawing and was the one I saw clearest in my mind.
It took nearly 4 years of work to complete all 3 posters because my working time was heavily broken up in between some major life events. There were definitely stretches of months where nothing was worked on. I had to do a lot of research for the wheel online and in Asbury Park, and ended up modeling the structure in a 3D program to visualize it properly. (I'll be posting some of those images online for other artists to reference if they want to make some art as well!) What really helped tremendously were the photographs that John Margolies took in 1978. John is a legend in roadside architecture documentation and left more than 11,000 high quality photographs in an archive in the Library of Congress. It just so happens that 9 or so of those photographs are of the Palace Amusements ferris wheel!
John Margolies, Ferris wheel, Asbury Park, New Jersey, 1978
Emily: How can people learn more and support the Phoenix Wheel project?
Elyssa: Head on over to the Give Butter page for the official write-up and to donate directly. You can also buy the posters on my website and look for me at events on Bridge Street this summer. I'll be selling the posters and other merchandise for the SRHC as well. Currently, we have pint glasses and stoneware coasters and maybe adding some more items too.
Emily: Why do you see this project as important?
Elyssa: I've seen a few posts online saying the project is pointless. And I think you can be cynical about any project, especially large, public ones. But I think despite ...everything... going on in the world, joy is still there. There is a lot of joy wrapped up in the history of this wheel. At its heart, commercial architecture like the Phoenix Wheel is about community. It's about a place in the world as well as a point in time. It's about the people who built it here at Phoenix Steel. It's about the people who operated it for decades in Asbury Park. It's about the people who rode on it and the memories they made. Who were they? Everybody. Some of those people were locals and some were visitors, just passing through. But the reality is that we are all just passing through. This is a one-of-a-kind structure in terms of engineering, but it also stands as a testament to Phoenixville, Asbury Park, and Barbara Cohen, who has done so much to preserve the historical treasures in our town (the Foundry, the mural at the corner of Bridge and Main, the Phoenix Wheel). And I think that is worthy of joy and celebration-- one more beautiful feather in the cap of our vibrant town.
