Photo Essay: The Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round Celebrates a Stationary Centennial

I didn't get to ride the Griffith Park Park Merry-Go-Round nearly enough when it was running. But now that the 100-year-old Spillman Engineering Corp. ride hasn't been running for four years, I've been desperate to experience it again.

 

Photo Essay: Riding Every Carousel, Long Beach Pike Edition

I first remember spotting the carousel at the Pike in Long Beach in 2013, on my way to the Aquarium of the Pacific with a friend—one who was too cool for ferris wheels and merry-go-rounds. 

 

I figured I'd get around to going back—and I'm sure I did at some point, but I also remember getting a good look at it when it wasn't operating in 2021, during Covid shutdowns. 

Photo Essay: A Los Angeles Carousel Has Made San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Its Home for Over 80 Years

This is just so typically me. 

I go years (or decades) without visiting a place—and then as soon as I go back once, I end up going back a bunch of times. 

Because it's so easy for me to shift my attention elsewhere. But once something gets back into the front of my mind, I realize how much I've missed out on. 

Such is the case with San Francisco. 

I was just there in January, after having not really been there since 2006—save for a couple of hours two years ago—and ever since, I've been itching to go back. 

This time, California Preservation Foundation's Doors Open California program gave me the perfect excuse to return. 

But first, I had a lot of places to cross off my list. 

 

Take Golden Gate Park, for instance. It feels very much like San Francisco's version of Central Park in New York, with meandering paths and sprawling lawns and a few historic points of interest—including its own vintage carousel. 

Photo Essay: L.A. Circus, A Prop House Providing Everything Under the Big Top to Hollywood and Beyond

It takes a lot to surprise me. Especially after living in LA for 13 years and seriously exploring Southern California for about 16 years. 

 So I was thrilled to be introduced to a place I'd never heard of—LA Circus in Riverside, California—and have the chance to tour it with the Los Angeles Railroad Heritage Foundation. 

Photo Essay: Discovering 50 Years of Magic Mountain History in 9 Months' Worth of Visits

Six Flags Magic Mountain in the Santa Clarita Valley community of Valencia turned 50 years old in May 2021. 

It opened as just "Magic Mountain" on Memorial Day weekend 1971 as a joint project of Sea World, Inc. and The Newhall Land and Farming Company

Building the $20 million amusement park on the 44,000-acre Rancho San Francisco—renamed Newhall Ranch after its purchase by Henry Mayo Newhall in 1875—was a feat that the original director of engineering likened to "building an entire city" in just 70 acres.

Newhall Land and Farming company sold the park in 1979 to a company that actually knew how to operate amusement parks—Six Flags, then a Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary. And in the decades that followed, Six Flags changed hands multiple times and even declared bankruptcy. 

But through it all, Magic Mountain has survived—and grown to 260 acres.

Today, it's known as the "Thrill Capital of the World." But I'd suspected that there might be some earlier remnants from its 50-year history—some that might be considered less thrilling by today's standards, but that would be of real historical interest to me. 

Photo Essay: Dormant, Ignored San Jose Carousel Waits Patiently For Riders to Return

I've visited a handful of ill-fated carousels in my day—ones that are in disrepair or threatened with demolition and have survived fire and years in storage. 

 

Photo Essay: The Manufacturing of Midway Magic at Herschell Carrousel Factory in Western New York

Over 3,000 hand-carved, wooden carousels were manufactured at the Herschell Carrousel Factory in North Tonawanda, New York. 

That was from 1915—when it moved into the former home of King Lumber Company—until 1953, when the company was sold and moved from the suburbs into the city of Buffalo proper. 

 

Photo Essay: Twice Around the 105-Year-Old #1 Special at the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum

Despite having grown up in Syracuse, New York, I hadn't been to the Buffalo area since I was 5 years old, when my family visited my uncle in the town of Lockport and crossed the border into Canada to visit Niagara Falls and Marineland. 

 

So, last week, after having flown in an airplane for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic to visit Syracuse for the first time in years, I decided to avoid a layover at JFK Airport and fly direct into Buffalo-Niagara Airport—conveniently located near a bucket-list attraction for me, the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum in the town of North Tonawanda. 

Photo Essay: The Wonder of Bob Baker Marionette Theater's Window Displays at the Santa Monica Pier Carousel (Updated)

Last updated 3/1/21 9:24 PM PT—video embed from Bob Baker Day added at bottom.

Updated 1/31/21 7:39 PM PT—nighttime photos added at bottom. 

Because of the pandemic, I haven't been able to get inside the circa 1916 Looff's Hippodrome, the building that houses the Santa Monica Pier Carousel. 

In fact, it's been pretty hard just to get outside of it, with the Pier closed to the public on certain weekends and holidays to prevent overcrowding and infection-spreading.

    

But last week, I finally got to check out the "Windows of Wonderment" exhibit in the carousel building's windows—a retrospective of a handful of Bob Baker Marionette Theater's stringed spectaculars. 

R.I.P. Redondo Fun Factory, Closed Today

Southern California’s amusement and theme parks used to be hometown destinations for family adventures. Not so much anymore.



The Fun Factory at the Redondo Beach Pier used to be billed as the “largest indoor family entertainment center on the West Coast"—and it was like a little piece of Coney Island in the South Bay.



That was all supposed to change December 2019.



At least, that's what they'd been saying since I visited back in July 2017.



But as it turns out, today was its last day of operation. It's closing two months early, without much warning. (Though, to its credit, that closing date has been bumped a few times from September of this year.)



First opened in 1972, it used to be the kind of place you could ride a Tilt-a-Whirl on a rainy day—for 50 cents—and stay dry because it was indoors.



But the City of Redondo Beach bought the business (along with the Fun Fish Market) from Fisherman's Cove Company in 2017.

It’s all part of a major remodel of the Redondo Beach waterfront and the King Harbor area—a “reinvention” that promises to return the pier back to its “glory days,” when it once housed its own Looff carousel and was known as the “Pleasure Pier” (sometimes called the “Endless Pier”).



Today’s pier structure—which dates back just to 1995—is the seventh such pier to have been built at the Redondo Beach waterfront since the late 1800s.



While it was still in operation, you could try your hand at playing any number of classic arcade games, like Skee-Ball, air hockey, racing horses...



...shooting the clown, or knocking down dolls.



If you won, you’d get a line of tickets that you can redeem for various toys, tchotchkes, knick-knacks and giant stuffed animals—just like any good carnival or county fair.



There were several classic coin-operated kiddie rides that still worked—like the “Rodeo Pony,” Donald Duck and miniature carousels.



And, of course, rows upon rows of “claw” machines.

Based on a letter posted on the Redondo Fun Factory website, the deadline to vacate was actually January 17, 2020. Its octogenarian owner, Steve Shoemaker, had tried negotiating with the City of Redondo Beach, since there's no confirmed project to actually replace it.

He failed.

And so, he's selling—or auctioning—everything off, starting now.

Adapted somewhat from my KCET article "Where to Find SoCal's Vintage Amusement Parks."

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Faces of The Santa Monica Pier Carousel
The Giant Dipper

To Have Ridden A Horse, In Wood or Flesh

What is it about riding a horse that makes you want to get right back on one?



I've never ridden a real horse, of course...



...except for maybe a pony at the Great New York State Fair when I was really little and couldn't appreciate it...



...but I've ridden plenty of carousel horses.



They don't go anywhere...



...just around in circles.



And they don't always look like they could hold me...



...as they jump up and down.



But I'm endlessly fascinated by how each carousel horse is different—like how English ponies always have a name painted on the neck.



Or how some bear the markings of their maker on their side or their saddle.



Or how some aren't even horses at all, but rather giraffes...



...big cats...



...goats...



...or dragons.



Even among the green and gold dragons by Orton and Sons Spooner Company in Burton on Trent, the bodies are the same but the tongues are all different.



When you're riding a carousel horse, the swish of the tail is the least of your worries.



You never know what might be peering at you from behind...



...or rearing its ugly head for an attack.



But there's only one way to sit on a carousel horse...



...and they only move in one direction.



But what about the people who become carousel horses? Field Marshall Roberts, an officer in Boer War, was carved into a centaur version by the Spooner Company, still holding a quill pen and paper scroll. He's more man than horse.



But even a wizard can't turn a man into a horse, no matter how he sits or what he wears or what horses he socializes with.



If you get on the back of a man who acts like a horse, you can't say you've ridden a horse.

But if you've only ridden horses carved out of wood—ones that merely follow the tails in front of them, with no regard for destination or variance in speed—you also can't say you've ridden a horse.

I plan to remedy that before the end of the year.

Special thanks to Running Horse Studio for access to its menagerie, in various stages of restoration, circa March 2018.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Wayward Carousel Horses & Other Creatures
Photo Essay: The Faces of the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round

Photo Essay: The Faces of Knott's Berry Farm

When people think of Knott's Berry Farm today, maybe they still can smell the chicken dinners or the boysenberry pie.



Maybe they feel the jolt of the roller coasters or the racket of an Old West gunfight reenactment.



As for me, I think of the faces.



Its ghost town wouldn't seem nearly as ghostly without those haunting, creepy figures.



It started with the "Calico Belles," Marilyn (inspired by the real Marilyn Hargrove Schuler) and Cecelia (inspired by the real Cecilia Peterson)—concrete figures sculpted and painted in 1954 by Claude Bell, Knott's resident sculptor.



They were modeled after two "Calico Saloon" dancing girls named Marilyn Schuler and Cecelia Peterson and sat on a bench at Calico Square.



Back then, getting your photos taken with their facsimiles was nearly as popular as seeing the real live girls doing the can-can in a show.



Since then, they've been replaced by Ruby and Flo, and more figural sculptures "of the period" have popped up around the park—even outside of the ghost town, as far over as Camp Snoopy.



Those saloon girls were just the beginning of Claude Bell's notoriety—having created Dinny the Dinosaur (a Brontosaurus) in 1975 and Mr. Rex (a tyrannosaurus) in 1986 out of steel and concrete (well, shotcrete) to help advertise his restaurant, the Wheel Inn (now demolished), in the town of Cabazon.



Moreover, credit can't be given entirely to Claude Bell for creating some of the most memorable faces at Knott's Berry Farm, as the animals in the menagerie merry-go-round were carved by craftsmen at the Dentzel Carousel Company nearly decades before Walter Knott opened his berry farm.



In fact, this antique Dentzel—one of only three found in Southern California (the others at Disneyland and Castle Park)—is among the oldest operating ones you can find anywhere.



Built in 1902, it resided at Hershey Park in Pennsylvania until 1936, when it moved to Brady Park in Canton, Ohio. It arrived in Buena Park in 1955.



In addition to its horses, it's got a giraffe, a deer...



...two pigs...



...a goat...



...and four ostriches.



Of the three rows on two separate platforms—for a total of 48 animals—only six of them have had to be replaced with fiberglass replicas.



This 1902 model is not to be confused with the carousel that was part of the Knott's Lagoon attraction, which had its own Dentzel carousel. The Lagoon was bulldozed and paved over for parking, and that carousel was auctioned off as part of Bud Hurlbut's collection in 1990.



Now, I go to a lot of amusement parks and county fairs and such. I'm up on all the latest trends and thrills. But no matter how much G-force the modern-day roller coasters can make me experience, and no matter how "real" virtual reality becomes, nothing will ever compare to the artistry and craftsmanship of these old, antiquated, mechanical machines with their galloping horses and snickering faces.

And nothing can haunt me quite like creations of Claude Bell and the other faces of Knott's Berry Farm.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Upon the 75th Anniversary of the Ghost Town at Knott's Berry Farm
Photo Essay: Old Trapper's Lodge Statues
Photo Essay: The Faces of Bonnie Springs Ranch, Old Nevada
Photo Essay: Castle Park and The King of Theme Park Train Rides
Photo Essay: The Faces of The Santa Monica Pier Carousel