Nunley's

Nunley's Carousel, originally known as "Murphy's" carousel, was created in 1912 by the Stein and Goldstein Artistic Carousell Co. of Brooklyn, New York and installed in Golden City Park in Canarsie, on the Brooklyn waterfront, where it operated for 20 years. 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."[1]

In the spring of 1940,[2] when the Belt Parkway was planned in the area, the carousel was moved to Baldwin, on the border abutting Freeport.[1][3]

In Baldwin, Nunley's was located on Sunrise Highway, on the border with Freeport, New York, and operated from 1940 to 1995. Nunley's Carousel and Amusement Park was established by William Nunley, a third-generation amusement park entrepreneur, who also operated facilities in Bethpage, in Queens (in Broad Channel and Rockaway Beach), and in Westchester County (in Yonkers), New York.[4] The children's amusement park featured a roller coaster, little boats atop water, hand pedal cars on a track, a Ferris wheel, spin tubs, kiddie cars, planes, a miniature golf course, and a carousel. Often, the parents of visiting children had ridden the very same carousel when they were small. 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. Nunley.

Nunley's restaurant served a cheeseburger deluxe, hamburgers, hot dogs, pastrami on rye, pizza, fountain soda, soft serve ice-cream in vanilla, chocolate, or twists with sprinkles, and bags of French fries slathered in ketchup. It was a popular arcade hot spot during the '80s gaming boom, featuring all of the latest games, but it also housed classics from generations gone past. 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.

Nunley's underwent a hepatitis B scare in the late '80s when one of the chefs was diagnosed with the disease; no patrons were affected.

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.[1]

Nonetheless, "affection for the carousel [was] powerful and widespread". 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. (The song was featured in his Broadway jukebox musical Movin' Out (2002) and on the show's original cast soundtrack.) Now residing in Oyster Bay, Long Island, the singer was unsuccessful in having the carousel moved out of storage and placed in a park in Oyster Bay.

In August 2007, two trucks from Carousel Works in Ohio, the largest manufacturer of wooden merry-go-rounds in the world, arrived at Museum Row at Mitchel Field and removed pieces of the Carousel for restoration at the company's headquarters in Mansfield, Ohio. In the fall of 2008, the restored carousel was returned for reassembly on a new plaza between the Cradle of Aviation Museum and Long Island Children's Museum in East Garden City, New York. It now plays a special soundtrack provided by Billy Joel. The singer-songwriter was asked if he would allow his "Waltz No. 1, Op. 2," which is subtitled "Nunley's Carousel" and is inspired by his childhood rides on it, to be played on the restored carousel organ. A Joel spokesman said Joel arranged for David Rosenthal, his keyboard player, to go into a studio to record the piano composition with a carousel organ-like instrumentation.

The restoration was paid for with $420,000 from discretionary capital funds controlled by Nassau County Legislator Joseph Scannell (D-Baldwin), along with money raised by Pennies for Ponies, a nonprofit group started by then 11-year-old Rachel Obergh, of Wantagh, New York.[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. The county also budgeted $1 million for a new enclosure for the carousel.

On March 15, 2009, after painstakingly restoring the carousel to its former glory, Nassau County reopened the carousel in its new home, the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Museum Row, near the Nassau Coliseum in Garden City, Long Island.[2][3] The caretakers for the old carousel said that it was scheduled to open for rides on Saturday, May 2, 2009.

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. If a patron grabs a brass ring, s/he wins a free ride on the carousel.

Only three of the 17 carousels built by Stein & Goldstein remain intact: Nunley's Carousel, the Michael Friedsam Memorial Carousel in Central Park, New York City, and the Bushnell Park Carousel in Hartford, Connecticut.[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.[5] It was installed at the Baldwin station of the Long Island Rail Road on April 22, 2019.[6][7]