Toronto Ontario, Centre Island
Here I is again, carrying on about carousels, and I has another goodie for you.
This posting and the last are actually part of my ‘what I did on my summer vacation’ well, vacation type thingy, and actually happened to occur during my official vacation. What I did, well what I am still doing as of this writing, is to chase down carousels (and most of them travel at a very sedate speed I can tell you, although this one, that I’m about to talk about, I swear is a faster beast than most).
I don’t know how I miss these things, like the Looff carousel in Pt Dalhousie. I may have already
mentioned in some blog article that Toronto Island is a secret gem of the city
(or other such phraseology). This carousel, which again for years had slipped under my radar, is one of the ultimate proofs of
that.
Although it is rare this isn’t a C. W. Parker carousel, it isn’t a
Charles I. D. Looff either, this carousel happens to have been manufactured by
the G. A. Dentzel Steam and Horsepower Company of Germantown Pennsylvania. Wow,
what a mouthful.
An interesting tidbit of information is that it suffered a lot of damage in the hurricane of 1938 but was
rebuilt by one of the master carvers of the Detzel yadda yadda yadda, of
Germantown Pensylvania.
And it is a true menagerie: Lions ...check.
Tigers ...check.
Bears, ...um sorry (although it should be said that there was a twirling bear ride
for the kiddies not far from this attraction).
But it did have bunnies, or are they hares? We'll have to ask Alice.
And how about deer?
And ostriches.
And ostriches.
Well, the ostriches are shy, they're sort of checking you out from the other side of the horse.
Even pigs, or are these boars? I get so confused sometimes.
And cats with fish in they mouths.
And again, what I fell in love with, beautiful horses.
This carousel has 53 animals, which are 3 abreast. There are
36 jumpers and 2 chariots.
This time I had to take a ferry ride from downtown Toronto
to Centre Island (it costs $7 bucks return) and so, on this hot and pleasant
day, I made my way to the island and to the amusement park there, Centreville.
I had met the mayor of Centreville before, a few years ago,
and gotten day passes for all the attractions for me and my sons, but it’s
weird, somehow (again) I missed out on the carousel (it’s sorta’ on one edge of
the amusement area and I guess I was herded in the other direction and ended up
with the bumper cars). I guess it just wasn’t time for me to take it in. Life
is like that. I guess carousels are like that too.
But they come around.
So, as I mentioned, this is a fast sucker. It’s gotta’ be a
whopping 9 or 10 mile an hour.
But it’s certainly a beauty, and the music (which I haven’t
really mentioned in the last couple of entries) was fun to listen to (we could
get into a whole long discussion about vintage Wurlitzer organs and what they are worth today).
I’m running out of superlatives and so I guess I’ve come to
an end of this narrative. You’ll just have to come and take it for a spin and
let me know what you think.
And once again I did the photographs.
And once again I did the photographs.
4 comments:
I find it a bit surprising that the lion is so static in its pose compared to, say, the pig - it's almost contradictory when you think of the nature of the animals.
- Sid
I think it's meant to be that way. The outer ring of animals, often horses included, are often static, almost like a shield to the up and down aspect of many of the jumpers in the ride. Young children may be drawn to the animals like the lion because of this look. Also it allows the parents and guardians of the very young to keep a hold of their charges without adding the additional problem of holding them in place on a ride that, in addition to the vertical movement, goes up and down.
Which all makes perfect sense - but if you were picking an animal to stand still and be stable, and an animal to look like it was bounding along gracefully, would you pick a lion and a pig, respectively?
- Sid
Oh, I agree with you, it does seem a bit odd. The same thing goes with the tiger figure on the outer ring, it's pose implies that it's just striding along, not doing the bounding thing, but for some reason it doesn't look as static as the lion which really does stand out.
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