Press

ALBANY, NY – After months of being closed for repairs, the New York State Museum has reopened its popular antique carousel and announced the establishment of a special fund to ensure its continued operation for years to come.

The Museum was forced to close the carousel last summer after years of heavy use took its toll. Since opening in the Windows On New York gallery in 2001, the circa 1915 carousel hosted as many as 180,000 visitors a year, becoming one of the most popular attractions at the Museum. It operated seven days a week throughout the year, closing for short periods every June for routine maintenance. Last summer it was discovered that the carousel’s main gear, which had been in place since it was built, needed to be replaced.

One Museum visitor discovered the unfortunate downside to the carousel’s popularity when he found the carousel closed during a visit with his granddaughter. Shortly thereafter, Carl Ernst approached Geoffrey Stein, an extended family member and senior historian at the Museum, and offered his assistance to keep the carousel operating in the future.

The Carol and Carl Ernst New York State Museum Carousel Fund has now been established to address any future mechanical problems that might occur. The Ernst family has committed $3,000 annually, over the next five years, to purchase the parts that will be needed to keep the carousel operating continuously. The Museum hopes to raise additional funds from the private sector to ensure that adequate resources are available in the future to supplement state funding for carousel maintenance and repairs.

“Carol and I have championed the carousel to help the Museum keep it available to the community whenever the Museum is open,” said Carl Ernst, an Albany resident and CEO of Ernst Publishing Co., LLC., an Albany-based company and recognized authority on land recording offices in the United States.

“We are very grateful to the Ernst family for their generosity and support in helping us toestablish a dedicated fund for this historic treasure,” said Museum Director Dr. Clifford Siegfried. “This will ensure that the carousel will continue to delight old and young alike for many years to come.”

The carousel has now been outfitted with a new custom manufactured gear, built and installed by Brass Ring Entertainment of Sun Valley, Calif., the same company that restored the carousel seven years ago. A backup gear has also been manufactured so that if the new one needs to be replaced at some point in the future there will not be a long wait to create a new one.

Nearly one-fourth of all Museum visitors travel to the Museum’s fourth floor to ride the carousel, where it is located in a circular glass enclosure specially built for it. The carousel has repeatedly been listed in area “best of” lists compiled through area newspaper readers’ polls.

The animals on the carousel, consisting of 36 horses, two donkeys and two deer, were carved around 1895 by Charles Dare of Brooklyn. The animals were stationary and Dare used them on a track carousel, which had wheels beneath its platform that ran on a circular track. When track carousels later became obsolete, the Herschell-Spillman Carousel Factory in North Tonawanda, Niagara County reused the animals from Dare’s track carousel on a new carousel suspended from a central pole with a mechanism allowing the horses to move up and down and “gallop.” Herschell-Spillman also added a Neptune Chariot, a Rocking Chariot and a spinning “Love Tub.”

The new 48-foot diameter carousel, with a 10-inch diameter center pole, was one of the largest traveling or carnival carousels made. Brothers Fred and Albert Stadel of Wellsville, Allegany County purchased the carousel in the spring of 1915. From 1915 through the 1929 season, the Stadel brothers traveled the carousel by train throughout New York’s southern tier and bordering northern Pennsylvania. In 1930 and 1931 the carousel also operated at Olcott Beach, on the shore of Lake Ontario, in Niagara County. By 1933 the Stadel brothers had sold their carousel to J. Fenton Olive at Olivecrest Park on Cuba Lake, near Cuba, Allegany County. The carousel continued to be the main attraction at the park until it closed in 1972. The State Museum, with the foresight of Chief Curator John J. Still, purchased the carousel in 1975. It remained in a warehouse until Siegfried decided to bring it out of storage and restore it.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. The State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

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