Tilden Park carousel news

Having grown up in Berkeley, I had to follow up this link to Carousel News' account of the recent renovation work at the Tilden Park carousel. Apparently, California has not been content to leave historic rides alone. As an earlier article noted:

California just has "red-tagged" the historic 1911 Herschell-Spillman carousel at Tilden Park in Berkeley after over 90 years of safe operation with no accidents. This is yet another in the long line of attacks by California's DOSH (Division of Occupational Safety and Health) against the landmark carousels in the state.
This ridiculous closure follows the numerous major alterations forced to be made to the antique carousels at Golden Gate Park, The San Francisco Zoo, Seaport Village in San Diego, Disneyland and many others in the state, all in the effort to try and make antique, historic carousels meet modern standards. This is destroying the original historic value of the carousels.

This latest closure in Berkeley was due to the fact that the carousel operates without a fence. Never mind that in the 90-plus years of operation there has never been a problem, while fences have a long history of causing accidents. That doesn't seem to matter, according to the state. Nor does destroying the layout of a historic building that just underwent a major restoration last year using tax payers' dollars. . .

Of California's 22 historic carousels, all were well intact just 5 years ago. Sadly, most have dramatically changed since then and two major carousels are gone. With this view of carousels, the list of lost carousels will continue to grow.

Posted by David on April 25, 2008 3:01 PM