Jane's Carousel Still Doesn't Have a Home in Park

The story of the wonderful carousel painstakingly restored by Jane Walentas in Dumbo is an odd one, given how hard she and her husband David have been trying to secure a place for it in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The Walentases have covered the cost of restoration and have contracted with Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel to design a pavilion for it. They would pay to have the structure built. Yet, the Park hasn't committed to space for it and apparently won't right now. NY Magazine's Intelligencer reports:

Regina Myer, new president of the park-development authority, calls the carousel “awe-inspiring.” But her priority, she says, is to get park-infrastructure construction up to speed after years of dithering. Which means the carousel and its pavilion will just have to wait, Pritzker or not. And so the carousel still sits behind a padlocked gate in a former spice warehouse in Dumbo, awaiting its fate. “I wake up every morning and ask myself, ‘How do we get the powers that be to get off their dime?’ ” Jane says. “We’re tired and a little worn down.” And she worries that if the current state of limbo stretches too long, this prospective jewel of the park may eventually end up elsewhere. “There’s a guy in Dubai who wants to buy the carousel,” she says. “I guess they have children there, too.”

For the time being, the carousel is housed in a former warehouse building on Water Street in Dumbo.