The boldest plan to draw people to Staten Island since the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge — a giant Ferris wheel that could be seen from Manhattan and Brooklyn — met an unceremonious end on Tuesday.

The developers of the New York Wheel, which was supposed to take more than 1,400 riders at a time for a spin high above New York Harbor, surprised city officials with a letter that pronounced the project dead. That surrender ended the brightest of hopes for an attraction that could draw tourists and cast a new light on the least famous of the five boroughs.

“After years of planning, the developers of the New York Wheel announce, with great disappointment, that the dream of building a world-class attraction in Staten Island will unfortunately not come to fruition,” Cristyne Nicholas, a spokeswoman for the project, said in a statement.

City officials said they were sorry to learn that the project’s developers had decided to stop trying to complete it. The city owns the site and had extended generous tax breaks to the project, but had not invested directly in it.