My grandfather retired from Uniroyal, so to take a shot in front of the company’s tire has meaning to me.

According to Wikipedia:

The tire was first created as a Ferris wheel for the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair. It was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, the same architectural firm that designed theEmpire State Building. As the Uniroyal Giant Tire Ferris wheel, it carried over 2 million people, including prominent passengers such as Jacqueline Kennedy, Telly Savalas, and theShah of Iran.^[3] The wheel contained 24 barrel-shaped gondolas, each carrying 4 people.^[4] The wheel was capable of carrying up to 96 passengers and was driven by a 100 hp engine.^[5]

When the fair ended in 1965, the tire was disassembled and shipped by rail to Detroit, where it was reassembled as a static display without its passenger gondolas outside…