I went for a hike at Griffith Park this weekend & something weird and kind of magical happened:

My friend and I met at “Merry Go Round Lot 2” and went to see the ruins of the old zoo, and we rambled around but just didn’t see a Merry Go Round. Did it exist? Was it a ghostly apparition only? Then, when we were about to go, we spotted a shuttered building under the trees:

It was the Merry Go Round! We wanted a look, even at it all muffled up. But then — it turned out that one of the panels was open — we could see inside. And then, as we approached, another cranked up

Somehow we had arrived just as a current manager of the extremely closed Griffith Park Merry Go Round was there, having someone take photographs, trying to figure out what restoration to do. He invited us to come in and take a look:

It had been a very hard year for the Merry Go Round. Not just the pandemic. One of the owners of the Merry Go Round had died suddenly. It wasn’t clear when or how they could reopen: https://laist.com/2020/08/08/julio-gosdinski-dies-griffith-park-carousel-merry-go-round.php

Raul Guerra told us he’d worked there on and off since he was 15. He remembered restoring and repainting different parts as a teenager.

Raul talked about the painstaking work of replacing the real horsehair tails on the horses — having to soften and shape the hair and then make sure it was firmly fixed enough so that people would not yank it out — because that’s the first thing kids & adults do, they yank them.

Some of the horses had bandanas on their noses, like masks

Almost everything on the Merry Go Round was original, a century old and all hand-carved. (And look at the California poppies?)

The organ built for the Merry Go Round was still there, inside, although it’s so loud, we were told, OSHA regulations mean it can’t actually be used most of the time.

And there were all the old paper rolls for dozens of different Merry Go Round songs

The old signs

Some of the Merry Go Round adornments had been repainted in the 80s, when Raul was working there, selling hotdogs and doing the paint work, but much of it had not been redone at all

There were still the old Merry Go Round paintings of lions and damsels and landscapes in summer and landscapes in snow

What’s that old ad for “Ross R Davis, Agent”? I asked. Raul said it was for a Merry Go Round traveling agent from the 1920s or 30s when Merry Go Rounds like this traveled from town to town, and there was a whole Merry Go Round industry

Then the most magical thing happened: the photographer wanted an image of the Merry Go Round in motion, so Raul was like: grab hold! Help me spin this! So we all grabbed and pushed and — the horses started going up and down. It was alive!

I don’t have a photograph or video of the Merry Go Round in motion because I was using both hands to push!!

But it all spins on one pivot point. And when it’s in motion, it all — just goes.

This is a Merry Go Round with ~history~. One story is that Walt Disney brought his kids here, and it inspired him to create Disneyland. There’s a photo of him inside. https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/this-old-timey-merry-go-round-in-griffith-park-inspired-walt-disney-to-create-disneyland/

It is not in fact 5 cents now. I think Raul said $2.50?? Maybe that’s not updated either.

I am trying to coney to you how beautiful this Merry Go Round is, even silent & shuttered. Raul was like: please post on social media about us. Things are hard right now. We can’t even log into our social media accounts or website. A lot was lost when the owner died.

When we finally walked away, my friend & I could not quite believe it had happened. How was that experience real? How had we been the lucky ones?

“We have to come back,” my friend said. When the music and lights are on. When we could actually spin.

Will that be possible?

Anyway, this is just from memory. I didn’t take notes. Spelling may be wrong. Just wanted to share a small beautiful thing, some people fighting to help a very old Merry Go Round survive.

Also: yes, this was a first date.

(If you are a journalist and want to talk to Raul, I have contact information for him)