Sunday, May 24, 2009

No carousel rides in the near future

From the Daily News:

For the first time in almost two decades, the historic Forest Park Carousel will be shuttered on Memorial Day weekend.

The unofficial start of summer has customarily also served as opening day for the 49 hand-carved horses, lions, tigers, deer and chariots.

Parks Department officials said they are still working to find a concessionaire to run the rare carousel, which dates to 1903.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to the new "Fun City"!!!!!

Anonymous said...

A sad example of waste. An excellent opportunity for someone to make a good dollar lost and children deprived of a simple pleasure.

Anonymous said...

Instead of contracting with a concessionaire, the city ought to let a local community group run the carousel. Make this a "people's park," and let local volunteers run this ride.

Anonymous said...

That might not work for insurance purposes, but I imagine we could train one or two park rangers whose jobs were on the line due to fiscal stringency and help make sure that their hours or jobs aren't cut while generating a little spare cash for the city.

Anonymous said...

Judging from the neglected condition of Forest Park in general, it's no wonder the carousel never worked out. Clean up he park and make it more inviting and safe for the public. This would increase foot traffic that could support the carousel.
Has anyone checked out the bandshell area--- just 5 years after renovations and it looks run down and neglected. Nothing good lasts in NYC anymore...

Anonymous said...

Nothing good lasts in NYC anymore...

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Not true Queens!

Go to Central Park (Manhattan), Prospect Park (Brooklyn) or Van Cortlandt Park (Bronx)

Why not Queens? Well Queens West has a nice waterfont (that cost millions of your taxes to make) and that is all that you need to know.

People in Queens don't know any better, have no avenue to express it if they did, and are too polite if they had the chance.

Anonymous said...

It wouldn't hurt if the public had more respect for the parks either. The parkies are not your mother. You can clean up after yourself.

I go to the Brooklyn Botanic garden regularly and many of the things that people regularly do in city parks would get you thrown out on your ear there.

One reason that BBG is well-maintained.

Anonymous said...

well, let's think about it. Based upon recent actions on ALL levels of Government, where contracts aren't contracts (we change the rules retroactively), would YOU want to do business with them?

The best bet in this day and age is to try and fly under the Government radar, and running a government concession is not the way to do that