DUMBO

Jane’s Carousel hosts its 1,000th birthday party

Nearly a Century Old, Jane Walentas’ Labor of Love Continues to Bring Joy to Families

July 27, 2017 By Andy Katz Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Jane’s Carousel hosted its 1,000th birthday party on Sunday. Eagle photos by Andy Katz
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Jane’s Carousel played host to its 1,000th birthday party on Sunday Opening in 2011, the landmark of the revamped park celebrated the feat in just over half a decade.  

This day’s guest of honor, Maxim Jafri, was the epitome of dapper in his white oxford shirt with a Winnie the Pooh emblem and three-quarter camo fatigue trousers. His fine black hair was parted neatly on the left, and his dark brown eyes missed nothing as he watched mom, Samantha Wolner; dad, Rab Jafri; and grandmother, Farah Jafri hustle about the balloon-decorated picnic tables shoring up last-minute preparations for what would soon be the debonair toddler’s 1st birthday party.

“We wanted his 1st to be someplace special, someplace historic,” Wolner explained as she tacked up the last of the balloons. “We’d never been here before.”

Built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922, the carousel’s 48 wooden horses — hand-carved by artists John Zoller and Frank Carretta — first called the Idora Amusement Park in Youngstown, Ohio home. In 1975, the carousel became the first of its kind to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Less than a decade later, Idora set to auction off the carousel’s key features — horses, chariots and a Wurlitzer Band Organ — when Jane and David Walentas purchased it complete for $385,000, bringing it to Brooklyn for restoration.

Jane’s Carousel workers Katie Bell, Hannah Winkler and Helena Smith were busy during the party. As 11 a.m. approached, the carousel’s usual opening time, a line had already formed. Last-minute checks were made. A few of the waiting riders were teens with smartphones at the ready for the inevitable selfies they’d made while in motion, but the majority were parents with small children.

“We come here pretty much every weekend,” Evan Reynolds explained once the ride began. Reynolds kept his hands at the ready to help his 3-year-old daughter Mavis maintain her seat, but she appeared to have long-mastered the wood saddle.

Operated by the nonprofit Friends of Jane’s Carousel, riders pay $2, which goes entirely to maintenance and operation.

“Most of the birthday parties we do are for children,” Winkler explained, “but not all. The eldest I can remember right now was a man celebrating his 73rd.”

David Walentas, a co-founder of Two Trees Management, and his wife, Jane, former art director for Estee Lauder, painstakingly restored the carousel, Jane herself doing much of the intricate, maddeningly precise work. One of the original forces behind the postindustrial revitalization of DUMBO, the Walentas’ vision put the carousel at the edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park, protected and enhanced by a Plexiglas “jewel box” enclosure designed by French architect Jean Nouvel.

Although the path to its current spot nestled between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges wasn’t altogether a smooth one — Walentas had to overcome resistance from the Brooklyn Heights Association over the carousel’s precise location — by September of 2011, it was open to the public.

After besting the formidable Brooklyn Heights Association, Jane’s Carousel next faced the wrath of nature. Barely a year after opening, the carousel found itself a casualty of Superstorm Sandy, its enclosure flooded from a rising East River, damaging but thankfully not destroying it.

With all of Maxim’s guests finally arrived, it was time to take on the gaily colored wooden team of painted ponies. With help from mom and paternal grandmother Rose Chin, Max made his first go ’round balanced on a stationary horse. Family members, wearing pink entry bracelets supplied by carousel staff, cheered him on. By the time the music faded and the carousel stopped turning, the birthday boy was ready to tackle one of the “big boy” steeds, a jumper, which he rode with the calm and panache of one far-advanced in years.

His first carousel ride a rousing success, Max returned to the picnic area where cake and presents awaited the young man who shared the milestone of a venerable amusement park ride designed to bring joy to children of all ages with a very special one of his own.

 

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