SeaGlass Carousel

SeaGlass Carousel in October 2015

The SeaGlass Carousel is a fish-themed carousel in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City. It opened in August 2015.

The project to build a carousel was created by Warrie Price, founding president of the Battery Park Conservancy.[1][2] Part of a plan to redevelop the park,[3] it cost $16 million to build; $8 million of this money was paid for by the city and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.[4] A ride costs $5 and lasts for three-and-a-half minutes.[1] Design and construction took nearly a decade.[5][6]

The carousel is the work of New York architectural firm WXY and artist George Tsypin.[7][1] Music for the ride was created by Teddy Zambetti, a composer and music executive for SiriusXM, who adapted familiar classical themes by Debussy, Mozart, Prokofiev, Ravel, and Saint-Saëns into contemporary styles.[8]

The carousel features seating on identifiable species, such as a Siamese fighting fish.[2][4] The carousel is designed to resemble an under-the-sea garden through which visitors ride on fish that appear to be made of sea glass and shimmer as though they were bioluminescent.[1][9] The effect refers not only to the carousel's waterfront site, but to nearby Castle Clinton, which housed the New York Aquarium from 1896 until 1941.[1][2] The design is also unusual for placing its operating machinery under the floor, so that there is no post in the center of the ride.[10] A designer from WXY Architecture stated of the carousel, "As far as we know, there’s nothing in the world like this".[7]

The carousel opened to the public on August 20, 2015. City officials described the opening as a symbol of recovery in the area, which suffered damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012.[10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Dunlap, David (13 August 2015). "New York's New Carousel Puts You in a Whirling School of Mechanized Fish". New York Times. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Dunlap, David (27 May 2015). "A Transformation at the Battery, 21 Years in the Making". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  3. ↑ "SeaGlass: the carousel at the Battery". Battery Conservancy. Archived from the original on 14 August 2015.
  4. 1 2 Sheftell, Jason (18 April 2013). "Sea-themed carousel set for Battery Park". New York Daily News. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  5. ↑ "Details on the Battery Carousel". NY Curbed. 21 February 2007. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  6. ↑ Rosenberg, Zoe (17 July 2015). "Long-Delayed Battery Park Carousel Will Finally Open in August". NY Curbed. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  7. 1 2 Hoffman, Barbara (15 August 2015). "You have to see NYC's new $16 million carousel". New York Post. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
  8. ↑ Kutner, Max (August 20, 2015). "Behind the Music of New York City's Expensive New Carousel". Newsweek. Retrieved 2015-09-10.
  9. ↑ Cody, Sara (31 March 2016). "A spin through The Battery's SeaGlass Carousel is an artistic experience". Fox61 News. Retrieved 17 July 2016.
  10. 1 2 Janos, Adam (August 20, 2015). "New SeaGlass Carousel Draws Crowd on Opening Day". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2015-09-09.

External links

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