RICHMOND — The horses are restless again. Hand-carved by local people who had never fashioned a handsome horse before, these works of art made the front page last week when Jim Shulman, owner and co-founder of the Berkshire Carousel, proposed giving the whole shebang to the city. At a time when residents face serious issues in their daily lives and the nation, it might seem trivial to spend even a moment considering whether the herd of 40 horses should become a city asset and, simultaneously, a liability — or perhaps a splash of light with music.
On the plus side of the ledger, it’s an old-timey entertainment that attracted 5,000 riders its first weekend and 27,000 total its first summer, according to a 2022 Eagle report . Dozens of communities across the nation and in Canada have carousels, sometimes calling them merry-go-rounds. And their horses are running while ours stand still.
From Disney World to Paris to Barcelona they whirl, but the wreath of oldest in the world probably goes to one that was built in 1780 in Hanau, Germany, to entertain a prince. The story is that its rotations literally depended on manpower: peasants pulling the platform around. Then came oxen and, in some other cities, real horses, below the platform, hauled the man-made horses.
Carousels have histories. The one at Hanau, according to several carousel sites on the internet, is currently operating. But it’s had its moments.
It wound to a stop in 1932, and it took decades to restore it, inclu.