Horsin' Around
There was a front-page story in USA Today the other day about merry-go-rounds (or, as they called them, carousels. The headline was “Facing Extinction, There Are Some Still Spinning.” Today, there are about 150 merry-go-rounds left in the U.S., and only a fraction of them are still operational. One of them is in Holyoke.
The Holyoke merry-go-round, with its hand-carved, beautifully painted horses, has been spinning downtown for 32 years now. The horses were crafted by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, and the merry-go-round itself dates back to the early 1900s, when it operated at Mountain Park, an amusement park that was tucked alongside Mt. Tom until it closed in 1987.
The park’s owner, Jay Collins, had offers for millions to sell the merry-go-round, or to sell the horses off individually. The ride would’ve been hauled outta town. But Collins wanted to keep it nearby. So Holyokers—led by John Hickey, Joe and Angie Wright, and Mayor Marty Dunn—rallied to raise the bucks and save it. And they did. Collins sold it to them for $875,000. In an all-out effort, the never-quit folks of Holyoke got it done.
Local contractor Jimmy Curran donated his services to dismantle and rebuild it. We volunteered to design the logo and promo materials. They’re still using the same logo 32 years later. Ain’t that somethin’?
My old buddy and Elmwood Jets teammate, Tim Murphy, a local architect, donated his time to design a recreation of the pavilion to house the merry-go-round. Helluva nice job. The merry-go-round galloped back in 1993. Just goes to show what a town can do when everybody pitches in.
Keep your dukes up.
If you know someone who’d like these ditties in their inbox every week, have ‘em shoot us an email at darbyo@darbyobrien.com and we’ll add ‘em to the list.