Jane’s Carousel

A 1922 wooden carousel that one woman spent more than twenty years restoring

Local name: Jane’s Carousel

Collection: Brooklyn: the Heights and DUMBO · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The carved horses of the 1922 carousel · Enciclopedia1993, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is Jane’s Carousel. It was built in 1922 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, in the heyday of the American carousel. It has forty-eight carved wooden horses and two chariots. The carving is credited to the craftsmen John Zalar and Frank Carretta. For more than sixty years the carousel turned at Idora Park, an amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio. After a fire at the park, it was put up for sale. In 1983 the developer David Walentas included a historic carousel in his plan to renew this waterfront. On the twenty-first of October 1984, he and his wife Jane bought it at auction. They bought the whole carousel so that the horses would not be sold off one by one. Jane took on the restoration in her studio right here in Dumbo. By hand, with a craft knife, she scraped away sixty-two years of paint. Underneath, the original colors of 1922 came to light. Every discovery was recorded in notes, drawings, and photographs. The horses got back the little mirrors on their bridles and their faceted jewels. The work took more than twenty years. A transparent pavilion was built for the carousel. It was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, winner of the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in architecture. On the sixteenth of September 2011, the carousel opened to everyone. A year later Hurricane Sandy flooded it, but within a few months it was running again. In the evening, twelve hundred lights glow on it.

Visiting

Brooklyn Bridge Park, on the water between the bridges; the nearest park entrances are at Dock Street and Main Street, and the York Street subway station is close by. Rides are paid. Hours and closing days change with the season: in fall 2026 the carousel is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. The schedule is on janescarousel.com.