Don’t you just love old carousels? This one is located at Glen Echo Park in Maryland, and was installed in 1921! After checking out a strawberry festival on Saturday, we dropped by the park and I took photos until the heat and humidity got to be too much. Was it just a few months ago I wore fingerless gloves to keep my fingers from freezing?
When the music started, I racked my brain trying to figure out the name of this instrument. “Wurlitzer” came to mind, but they do jukeboxes. “Calliope”? Nope, that’s for the circus. Whipped out my iPhone and looked it up. It is indeed a Wurlitzer “band organ.”
The canopy and the carved figures were made by the Dentzel Carousel Company of Germantown, Pennsylvania. I think the details are so beautiful.
The Glen Echo carousel was in a scene in the 1989 comedy Chances Are starring Robert Downey Jr. and Cybill Shepherd.
Carousel and fairground art specialist Rosa Ragan spent years restoring the original paint colors to the animals, band organ, rounding boards and drum panels. That’s why I showed you the true colors of the carousel before offering this:
Sometimes it’s fun to shake things up a little. I rotated the original image and used a vintage cross processing action from Florabella.
Hope you all had a great weekend….
{ms. pearl}
Pearls & Prose 
Great shots. I love pictures of vintage rides or carnivals.
Cool.
Beautiful! This carousel is even prettier than the one at The Merry Go Round Museum in Sandusky. So glad you shared these photos!
I thought of you when I took these, Maura! I liked the crazy animals in your carousel better…these are kind of tame. 🙂
That’s an absolute beauty. Amazing.
It really is something. So old and still going strong.
Carousels have a special type of beauty – thanks for the photos! the colors look gorgeous – like flowers!
They really do. Thanks!
There’s just something so special about carousels. Maybe it’s the vintage appeal. Maybe it’s the craftsmanship. I love the ones with the unusual animals like the lion. I read an article recently about a woman in my neighborhood who is restoring the horses from an historic carousel that fell into disrepair. She’s painting them all by hand!
It’s the nostalgia and craftmanship for me. Wish they made things like that nowadays. I think the woman who restored this carousel did it by hand too. You’d pretty much have to because of all the different colors.
This is a beautiful carousel. Thank you for sharing this with us!
Happy to do it. 🙂
I love carousels! When I was younger, I always had to ride twice.
Oh, me too! Hey, is it your b’day yet?
My birthday is actually on the 20th, but Kiefer has Boo and Radley that day, so we did the adults only celebration Saturday, and then we’ll have the celebration with Boo and Radley on the 20th. That means…2 cakes. =)
OK, good, I’m glad I didn’t miss it. As for the cakes? Well played. 🙂
I’ve never seen a carousel like that. Gorgeous.
Jennie, isn’t there a carousel in the Tuileries? I’ve never seen it, but Flickr is full of photos of some carousel in Paris.
Wonderfully nostalgic images, Carole. The vintage carousel is so well maintained … somebody loves it! Did you take a ride?
We didn’t ride this time, Cheryl, but will go back! The weather was oppressive, and you had to stand in line in the hot sun.