What goes around, comes around — and the best place for that is on a carousel. Witness Holden Caulfield, whose happiest moments in “The Catcher in the Rye” were watching sister Phoebe glide past as she reached for the gold ring.
Brace yourself, buddy: There’s a new carousel in town. And what it lacks in gold rings, it makes up for with snappy special effects.
Opening Thursday in the Battery (formerly known as Battery Park) is the SeaGlass Carousel. Ten years and $16 million in the making — and sporting more than two dozen whirling, fiberglass fish, each with its own set of speakers and LED lights — it’s housed in what looks like a stainless-steel chambered nautilus shell near the Beer Garden, where it may discombobulate the tipsy. Happily, you shouldn’t need a Dramamine to climb into your fish for a heady, $5, 3½-minute whirl.
“As far as we know, there’s nothing in the world like this,” says Claire Weisz, of design firm WXY Architecture. She and partner Mark Yoes hit on the marine theme as an homage to the city’s first aquarium, which, before moving to Coney Island, sat here on Manhattan’s tip.
For years, says Battery Conservancy President Warrie Price, this stretch of park was a pathway, all scrubby grass and asphalt. “There was a lot of traffic, but no purpose,” she says. “You need to pull people in to see the beautiful gardens.”
The SeaGlass just might do it. At a preview the other day, several climbed aboard. As designed by artist George Tsypin — of Broadway and Olympics fame — the 30 fish come in seafoam green, shell pink or mellow yellow.
“I might just be hallucinating, but it seems my fish didn’t go up as high [as some others],” says 11-year-old Siddharth Chilluvuri. True: Not all (fiberglass) angelfish, lionfish and others are created equal — some rise 2½ feet higher than others.
Even so, Siddharth says, he enjoyed the ride: “This is less babyish — kind of like a carousel of the future.”
Starting Thursday, the SeaGlass Carousel will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. until January, when it closes for two months.
Giddyup in the boroughs
There’s at least one carousel in every borough, so you can take a spin anywhere. Though most of the following are open daily in summer, it never hurts to phone ahead.
Brooklyn
Jane’s Carousel, built in 1922 for Youngstown, Ohio, has galloped off to Brooklyn Bridge Park, which has much better views! Its magnificent carved wooden horses have been restored to their former glory, too. $2, closed Tuesdays; 718-222-2502.
The Bronx
Leave it to the Bronx Zoo to come up with a Bug Carousel — praying mantis, dung beetle and all. $5 (plus zoo admission), free Wednesdays; 718-367-1010.
Queens
For the 1964 World’s Fair, two smaller carousels merged into one mighty Flushing Meadows Carousel, at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park’s Fantasy Forest. $3; 718-288-2676.
Staten Island
Not only are there endangered species like mandrills and giraffes amid the horses of Willowbrook Park’s Carousel for All Children, but everything on it is completely accessible. $1.50; 718-477-0605.