Hooray! The City managed to scrape together enough coin to save the B&B Carousell at Coney Island and buy it for $1.8 million. The owners of the B&B shut down the carousel in May (he said he was too old) and decided to auction off the carousel. There were fears that the carousel would be sold to someone out of state, or worse, that the horses would be sold individually. The auction house had rejected the city's earlier bid of just over $1 million - apparently the carousel's appraised value high was $3 million - but lease, Gothamist has seen Antiques Roadshow - no appraisal is perfect. Anyway, the city coughed up in another couple hundred thousands, from the "Emergency Petty Cash For Merry Go Rounds" box, we imagine. Let's hope the city starts to take bids for a company to restore and manage the carousel, as Coney Island needs carousel rides.
Charles Carmel carved the horses at this carousel, but there were many master carvers at the time - here's a list of them. And there is, of course, the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Carousel, but that's set in New England.
Photograph from WNYC
