Nunley's

The New York Times notes: "The horses were carved in Coney Island style, which eschewed the look of docile ponies and prancing fillies and produced much more muscular, ferocious creatures with bared teeth and heads often lifted in motion.

Children clambered up to the same old-fashioned ticket booth and sometimes pointed out its most famous resident, a man with white hair, whom they often called Mr.

There was an old fortune teller machine, much like the one featured in Tom Hanks' movie Big (1988), pinball, a coin-operated dancing clown band, and a number of skee ball lanes.

[citation needed] In 1995, after operating Nunley's Carousel and Amusements for 56 years in Baldwin, the owners closed the park, retired, and sold the land to Pep Boys, which erected an automobile parts retail store on the site.

The horsehair tails on many of the horses [had] been shredded to mere stumps, and some were even shabbily replaced with pieces of cut-up black shag rug.

For example, Long Island native Billy Joel wrote "Waltz #1 (Nunley's Carousel)" (2001) as a tribute to the beloved attraction, which he enjoyed riding on as a child.

[2] Additionally, many of the carousel animals were adopted for restoration for $2,000 each by schools, a Baldwin hardware store, the Lercari family (who owned Nunley's), and Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi.

[citation needed] Nunley's Carousel, now on display on Museum Row in Garden City, has scores of painted wooden panels, 41 horses, two sit down chariots, a stand still lion, the original Wurlitzer calliope, and the brass ring machine[1] comprising a wooden arm filled with silver and brass rings, which reaches out toward the carousel so that passerby riders can reach out and grab them.

[1] The Baldwin Civic Association commissioned a mural of Nunley's Carousel by artist Michael White, which was unveiled at a ceremony at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on March 9, 2019.

[6][7] The original Nunley's Ferris wheel was purchased at auction by Stephen Lanning and is now located in at Jordan Lobster Farms Island Park, New York.

[8] Billy Joel's instrumental piece "Waltz # 1 (Nunley's Carousel)" (2001) appeared in the Broadway musical Movin' Out (2002) and is featured on the original cast recording.