Seaside Heights Carousel To Reopen This Summer: Report

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, NJ — Five years after its last spin, the historic Dr. Floyd L. Moreland Carousel on the Seaside Heights boardwalk is finally reopening.

The public will be able to ride the carousel starting at 6 p.m. on July 3, officials told the Asbury Park Press. Following an inspection, the borough received a state permit to operate the ride last week.

"It's very exciting," Mayor Anthony Vaz told the Asbury Park Press. "It was a long road, (but) in fairness to the public, it wasn’t a road that you could just rubberstamp and fix it in a day."

The carousel, which was built in 1910 and moved to Seaside Heights in 1932, was carefully dismantled in 2019 for a complete restoration effort that included removal of and repairs to the Wurlitzer Band Organ that plays the music.

All of inner workings of the ride have been repaired and restored by Carousels & Carvings of Marion, Ohio, and the wooden elements, including the 58 animals — 35 jumping horses, 18 standing horses, two camels, a lion, a tiger and a donkey — have been restored.

Two chariots have been painted as well and one is being retrofitted to accommodate a wheelchair, according to the Seaside Heights Historical Society. Local artist Marie De Saules contributed many hours working on the restoration, painting the organ and some of the horses.

The carousel, valued between $2.3 million and $2.5 million in 2019, is one of four remaining wooden carousels in New Jersey and one of about 200 still operating in the United States and Canada, according to the National Carousel Association.

Seaside Heights received the carousel and an oceanfront parking lot at Carteret and Sampson avenues as part of a controversial land swap agreement that gave Casino Pier a 1.37-acre parcel of beachfront at Sheridan Avenue. A 67-acre piece of property on the west side of the Garden State Parkway in Toms River, preserved as open space, was part of the deal as well.

The carousel was shut down in the spring of 2019 at its former site inside the Casino Pier amusements building in preparation for its move to the building on the boardwalk at Sampson Avenue.

Two grand opening ceremonies are planned on June 28 and June 29, the Asbury Park Press reported, for dignitaries and those involved in the carousel's restoration and fundraising efforts.