By Corey Sandler

One of our planet’s cross-cultural entertainments is a revolving circle with chairs hung from the rim. Slow and steady, riders go up and over the top and then return to exactly where they started.

I’m speaking, of course, of a Ferris Wheel, also known as an observation wheel or a big wheel.

We’ve traveled the world for decades, and it never ceases to surprise me to arrive in a strange place and see a familiar sight: a wheel.

The term Ferris Wheel dates from George Washington Gale Ferris Jr.’s centerpiece for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. There had been smaller wooden amusements of this type for hundreds of years, but Ferris dreamt big and used steel and his 264-foot-tall wheel ended up also carrying his name forward into the present day.

A London Icon

There are few more dramatic locations for an observation wheel than along the River Thames in London, and it was there that the London Eye opened in 2000 as part of the Millennium celebrations.

It stands 443 feet tall, its outer rim supported by tensioned steel cables like a bicycle wheel. The 32 glass-enclosed cabins can each hold as many as 25 people, giving views of capital city in all directions. Thousands of marriage proposals, more than a few weddings, and who knows what else might have happened on an uncrowded night.

Above the Ice

Another dramatic observation wheel is La Grande Roue de Montréal, a 198-foot-tall attraction along the Saint Lawrence River.

Beautiful all year round, the trip in mid-winter is cold…and spectacular, merging into the wondrous entertainments of Montréal en Lumière (Montreal in Lights) held in February and March. Did I mention it is cold? And wondrous?

Boston’s Frostival

In February 2026, Boston–another cold place in winter–put on the first Frostival festival. There were events all through the city but an instant highlight was the installation of a Ferris Wheel along the hah-bah.

It was a bit of a challenge, since opening day came about a week after a 20-inch snowfall blanketed the city. I enjoyed watching the installation of the wheel, which arrived folded in on itself on a single long trailer. It expanded up and out like a fan. The chairs are not enclosed; there are, though, many bahs serving likka around town.

The open cars offered very little protection from the elements. And then in mid-February a massive blizzard arrived in New England dropping several feet of snow blown by winds nearing 70mph. The operators had to have had their concerns; as the storm approached they unbolted the cars on the top half of the wheel. The wheel stayed in place along the water here in The Hub of the Universe. (That’s an old slightly boastful nickname for Boston, dontcha know?)

A Wheel with a View of Mount Fuji

Shimizu in the city of Shizuoka is many things at once: a bustling port that is home to fishing vessels and cargo ships, seafood processing plants, and a fanatical fan base for the local football team. Oh, and when you put your back to the city and look out into the harbor, spectacular views of Mount Fuji.

After we had completed touristy things, I spent the day exploring the city itself and ended up caught up in an amusement park crammed with Japanese cartoon and anime characters: The S-Pulse Dream Plaza includes a shopping mall, movie theaters, a food court, a somewhat fishy museum, and a Ferris wheel.

The mall is named after the Shimizu S-Pulse, whose stadium is located nearby.

About the historical collection: the Shimizu Sushi Museum tells you everything you never knew you wanted to know about raw fish. And unlike most other museums, if you see something you like you just might be able to eat a sample at one of the restaurants at the park.

Bright Lights, Big City

Kobe, on Japan’s main island of Honshu, is the nation’s third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. So, of course, it demands a big wheel.

The Mosaic Ferris Wheel is situated on a peninsula with restaurants, gaming parlors, and children of all ages. The wheel includes gondolas dedicated to Dokin-chan, a popular cartoon character in the Apanman series.

I’m quoting here: “Dokinchan is an orange-red germ with pink shoes and white hands. She has a single antenna, and a long tail.”

Okay, then. About the wheel: it has one of the more complex nighttime lighting designs, nicely reflected on the water of Kobe harbor.

The Grande Roue of Marseille

Marseille in the south of France has a little bit of everything: history, commerce, conflict, and a big wheel along the harbor or the beach.

This is a city of broad shoulders, not as sophisticated as Paris, and the people are renowned for what seems like rough and tough attitudes but is really more of a reflection of its working class economy.

But they do have a Ferris Wheel: the Grande Roue is usually moved seasonally between the Vieux-Port (the Old Port) and Escale Borély, south of the city near the beach.

In my photo below, it is installed in the harbor at the base of the hill that is crowned by Notre-Dame de la Garde (“Our Lady of the Guard”) which seems to hover above the city. The locals often use a different nickname: “La Bonne Mère” (The Good Mother.)

Tall, Small, and Weird

I’ve saved the strangest for last.

Batumi, Georgia (on the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains about 12 miles north of Turkey and 166 miles south of Sochi in Russia, has seen a lot of history over the millennia.

This is the place, according to ancient Greek mythology, where Jason and the Argonauts were headed in their search for the Golden Fleece. We saw references to Jason all around Batumi (in the mythology it was called Colchis.)

Its strategic location and deep-water port made it an essential stop on trade routes, and over the centuries Colchis and then Batumi was ruled by the Kingdom of Georgia, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union.

Today it is an independent nation, somewhat nervously watching Russia, and keeping an eye across the Black Sea at Ukraine. On the other side of the mountains is oil-rich Azerbaijan on the Caspian Sea and below Azerbaijan is Iran. Tough neighborhood.

The country has had mixed success in holding on to a stable democracy, with overtures toward the European Union and NATO but also dealing with pressure from Russia.

Perhaps because of parlous politics, Batumi became an off-key version of a skewed place; think Las Vegas on the Black Sea. A lot of money arrived, looking for a place to park, which led to some seemingly shady deals.

And a Ferris Wheel.

A modern home for the Black Sea Technological University was constructed near the harbor, 656 feet tall with a bit of a pyramid shape.

About halfway up the structure, the designers installed a Ferris Wheel set into its facade with eight enclosed cabins. It was to be the world’s first skyscraper with a built-in wheel.

But the university never opened, and the Ferris Wheel hardly ever turned a full circle.

In 2015 the building was auctioned and sold, with plans to convert it into a Le Méridien hotel plus luxury residences and a casino, spa, and restaurants.

The hotel and residences have finally opened. And the Ferris Wheel is still there, although it is not in use.

Other architectural oddities in Batumi include the Alphabet Tower, a 500-foot-tall structure inspired by strand of DNA and wrapped with all 33 characters of the difficult-to-decipher Georgian alphabet. A restaurant rotates at the top.

Currently under construction is the 42-story Cube, looking like a pile of Jenga blocks.

Copyright 2026 by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. See more photos on my website at http://www.coreysandler.com

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE ANY PHOTO OR AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ONE OF MY BOOKS, PLEASE CONTACT ME.

SEE THE “How to Order a Photo or Autographed Book” TAB ON THIS PAGE FOR INSTRUCTIONS

Now available, the revised Second Edition of “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” by Corey Sandler, for the Amazon Kindle. You can read the book on a Kindle device, or in a Kindle App on your computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.

Here’s where to order an electronic copy for immediate delivery:

Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession: The Tragic Legacy of the New World’s Least Understood Explorer (Kindle Edition)

By Corey Sandler

In places that tend to have classically defined winters, school districts build a certain number of “Snow Days” into the annual schedule. When a storm of significance comes, the kids are given the day off and their parents are left to figure what in the world to do with them.

Our changing climate has knocked the calendar askew, particularly in New England which has traditionally had picture-postcard snowscapes. Some recent winters have deeply disappointed kids and laid bare the ski slopes.

New England is warming faster than most other parts of the world, and Massachusetts now experiences about 11 more days with temperatures above freezing than historical averages.

But there is also something scientists call the “snowfall paradox.”

As tropical areas become hotter, the atmosphere near the equator begins to hold more moisture and the natural wind and ocean currents in the Northern Hemisphere tend to steer that moisture toward the Arctic. When that extra moisture meets cold temperatures the result is heavy, wetter snowfall.

Fewer cold days. Fewer snowstorms. But when Arctic air plunges down in our direction, we are lined up to receive supercharged nor’easters.

That’s what happened at the end of January when a massive storm dumped nearly two feet of snow on New England.

Usually, when I look out the window of my office, 400 feet in the air above Boston harbor, I see the ocean and shipping traffic.

During the storm, though, what I saw with my eyes wide open was not much different from my eyes squeezed shut: a whiteout.

Please do not think of my observations as a complaint. I love snow, especially when I do not have to shovel it or drive in it. We’ll sit by the artificial fireplace and perhaps re-read New Englander poet Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

Dressed for Excess

At dawn, when I usually take my constitutional, an Arctic blast brought the temperature down to 5 degrees with a strong wind. As I try to convince myself, it’s winter; comes around every year about this time.

Early Frosting

We had a taste of things to come a few days ahead of the big storm with a burst of heavy wet snow that frosted the trees.

White on Red

Arnold Jacob “Red” Auerbach led the Boston Celtics to nine NBA titles as coach, eight consecutively. He counted seven more as a team executive.

All of which earned him a statue on a cold bench at Quincy Market in downtown.

Common Beauty

The heart of Boston is The Common, the oldest city park in the United States.

It is the gathering place for festivals, protests, and strolls no matter the season.

The Big Snow

The big storm came on a Sunday, on a day when many New Englanders were already planning to hunker down to watch (on TV) a championship football game, and with enough warning that we could make necessary preparations.

It was way too cold and windy for me to go out with my camera during the storm, but I dug into my ski bag to lay out thermals, a balaclava, and goggles. On Monday morning I was out at the crack of dawn to enjoy first tracks in Boston.

All text and photos are by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Copyright 2026. If you want to obtain a copy of one of my photographs for personal or commercial use, please contact me using the link on this page.

If you’d like to order a copy of my book, “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” you can obtain a Kindle or PDF version by clicking here: HENRY HUDSON DREAMS AND OBSESSION

Or if you would prefer to purchase a printed book in hardcover or paperback (personally autographed if you’d like) please send me an email for details. Click here to contact me.

By Corey Sandler

Another year done a full go-round, to paraphrase a great song by Jorma Kaukonen.

Farewell to 2025; some joyful moments along with more than a few which will not be missed.

Here in New England and in other far north parts, winter days sometimes seem as if they are drawn in black and white. Late sunrise, early sunset, and just a bit of brightness in between. I think that helps shape the flinty demeanor of those of us who live here.

We have managed to survive 2025, somehow. Onward…

A long, long, long time ago I was captured by photography. (From the Greek: drawing with light.)

Back in the day, most of us would shoot photos using a decidedly un-automatic camera: pick a film and hope it meets the needs of every lighting situation, select a lens aperture that suits the subject, take (or guess) at the right shutter speed, and when all was done send off those rolls of film to a lab and hope that the results were art.

There was always a sense of mystery made worse by the delay of a few days or a few weeks between taking a photo and seeing the results. Had I captured a good image, could the lab produce a decent print, and what would I do if my subject had her eyes closed, or if a tree seemed to sprout out of the top of someone’s head?

As my photographic eye developed, I began to learn how to process film and make prints in a basement darkroom. It was a lot of work, but it reduced the wait to a mere matter of hours.

By the time I had my first job at a newspaper, a new wrinkle: although we had photographers on staff, many of us also carried a camera and learned how to tuck our reporter’s notebook under one arm and grab a picture. The newspaper kept the darkroom at the ready as we approached deadline and more than a few times I tossed a roll of film to the photo editor as I dashed across the newsroom to my typewriter.

It was an adrenaline rush to bang out a breaking news story and receive a stack of barely-dry photos and watch them come together on the front page.

Imagine: by the 1960s and 1970s, readers were seeing words and pictures that were no more than three or four hours old.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Today the news feed on your smartphone or cable channel is essentially instantaneous: live video and audio from nearly anywhere on the planet. We are all living at the speed of light.

I guess that’s mostly good news. Although I could–and do–argue that the much slower pace of older technology allowed for things like fact-checking, context, and the application of news judgment.

Today things seem so black and white, although in truth everything is in shades of gray. Someday I hope to see the door open and everything return to glorious Technicolor. Without witches and gaseous wizards.

Okay, so as I step down from my soap box, I wanted to share some old-school photos. Today’s reverie is about the extraordinary power of black-and-white photography.

Full disclosure here: the photos in this month’s blog were all taken using a modern digital camera and the original files consist of color imagery.

But converting those images to a nuanced gray scale sometimes allows us to see things more clearly. That may be why most of us seem to dream in black and white most of the time.

Here are some of my dreamscapes from around the world.

Boston’s Garden

The Côte d’Azur

Three Swords in Rock

Fire Down Below

Sculpted by the Wind

Salting the Earth

Raising Cane

All text and photos are by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Copyright 2026. If you want to obtain a copy of one of my photographs for personal or commercial use, please contact me using the link on this page.

If you’d like to order a copy of my book, “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” you can obtain a Kindle or PDF version by clicking here: HENRY HUDSON DREAMS AND OBSESSION

Or if you would prefer to purchase a printed book in hardcover or paperback (personally autographed if you’d like) please send me an email for details. Click here to contact me.

By Corey Sandler

It has been, in many ways, a long and somewhat distressing year. It has been said that optimism is a political act. I’ll hang my hat on that for a while.

Far be it for me to quibble with the words of Shakespeare, but I’ve never fully come to terms with the concept of infinity, especially as it comes to things like wheels and circles. In “King Lear,” Edmund declares that the “wheel is come full circle.”

I get the general idea: the wheel has made a full revolution and is back to where it started. But is that an ending, or a beginning?

It’s the same thing with the tick of the clock at midnight when we come not to tomorrow, but to a new today.

My mind is a very crowded place. A conglomeration of spinning wheels, you might say.

Wheels Along the Amazon

Two boys stop wheeling to consider a luxury cruise ship on the chocolate brown waters of the Amazon River at Paratins.

Happy to See You

Old Times Not Forgotten

Tivoli Gardens in the heart of Copenhagen opened in 1843, the third-oldest amusement park in the world. It’s part of the wondrous fabric of that city and a regular stop on our visits there.

Alla Siciliana

The narrow alleys of Siracusa on the Italian island of Sicily are barely wide enough to accommodate a scooter. At left a modern scooter imported from Japan; at right a classic Italian Vespa P200E from the late 1970s or early 1980s. Most Americans caught their first glimpse of a Vespa (Italian for “wasp”) when Audrey Hepburn took off with Gregory Peck’s scooter in the 1953 film, “Roman Holiday.”

Sleeping Policeman

In many places around the world, a common nickname for a speed bump in the road is a “sleeping policeman.” That’s the term in the U.S., much of the U.K., and many parts of the former British Empire including Jamaica.

A few more: “gendarme couché” (various French-speaking nations), “policía acostado” (Colombia), “Śpiący policjant” (Polish), and “gulintis policininkas” (Lithuanian).

Here in Salaverry, Peru is a completely different version of the term: a sleeping cat atop a cycle belonging to the tourist police. A young recruit keeps watch from near the curb.

Circles on the Thames

Among our highlights this year was a late night ferry ride down the Thames from the West End theatre district to our ship moored at Greenwich.

We passed abeam of the London Eye. I thought of “Spinning Wheel”, written by and performed by David Clayton-Thomas, front man for Blood, Sweat & Tears.

What goes up, must come down
Spinning wheel got to go round.

Drop all your troubles by the riverside
Ride a painted pony, let the spinning wheel fly

Dude, Where’s My Bike?

In some European countries bicycles rule the road.

On January 1, we shall turn the page to a new year.

Albert Einstein, a pretty deep thinker, gives me a bit of hope. He said, “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

Onward.

All text and photos are by Corey Sandler, all rights reserved. Copyright 2025. If you want to obtain a copy of one of my photographs for personal or commercial use, please contact me using the link on this page.

If you’d like to order a copy of my book, “Henry Hudson Dreams and Obsession” you can obtain a Kindle or PDF version by clicking here: HENRY HUDSON DREAMS AND OBSESSION

Or if you would prefer to purchase a printed book in hardcover or paperback (personally autographed if you’d like) please send me an email for details. Click here to contact me.