Good Monday morning.
Some people compare life to a merry-go-round. I’m embarking on my 51st trip around the sun today, so to speak, and I have decidedly mixed feelings about that. I guess the alternative isn’t really one. So what choice do I have but to continue on, going around and around as the music plays wildly and the animals cavort around me?
It seems particularly apt, given that today is a milestone birthday for me, that it’s National Merry-Go-Round Day.
Also, in some places I’m seeing National Carousel Day. The two words are interchangeable, though the word “carousel” dates to the 17th century and is French for “a tilting match” – I believe in reference to a jousting game played by knights.
In England, a carousel can be called a roundabout, galloper, or tilt. Some people call these attractions flying horses.
But whatever you call it, you’re referring to a amusement park or playground attraction that is circular in nature, features seats and/or brightly painted beasts – often horses – that riders can sit and go up and down as the entire enterprise turns slowly – usually to the soundtrack of some very upbeat music.
Carousels were initially intended for adults, though today they are generally seen as a fairly tame ride for younger kids to enjoy. Together with roller coasters, they are the oldest amusement rides still in modern use. .
The earliest known carousel that worked in America was in Salem, MA. It dated back to 1799 and was known as “wooden horse circus ride”.
The oldest operating platform carousel in the nation today is Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs, MA. It was designed and constructed in 1876 by Charles Dare.
The carousel with which those of us in the Capital Region are likely most familiar is the one at the State Museum, which according to the website, was made sometime between 1912 and 1916 by the Herschell-Spillman Company of North Tonawanda, in Western New York.
This particular specimen features 40 animals, including 36 horses of three sizes, two deer and two donkeys. It could accommodate 50 people at a time. It was first used in Wellsville and later at Cuba Lake’s Olivecrest Amusement Park in Cuba, where it operated until the early 1970s.
The museum bought it in March of 1975, but it remained in storage at a collections facility at Rotterdam until it was fully restored and installed in (what was at the time) the new Terrace Gallery in 2011.
If you haven’t seen – and taken a ride on – this carousel, it is worth a trip. But you’ll have to wait, because it’s currently closed for maintenance.
If you are a New York City resident, and/or have been to Central Park at least once, you’re probably familiar with the carousel there (located in the middle of the park around 65th Street), which was installed in 1951, but dates to 1908 and is the fourth version of the attraction to be located in that spot.
It features 57 horses and two chariots that “gallop” along to music played by a mechanical organ. More here.
After a brutally hot weekend, it looks like we’re going to be a bit of a break. Temperatures will be in the mid-80s, though there’s a chance of scattered thunderstorms throughout the day.
In the headlines…
There were record-high daily temperatures in parts of the Northeast yesterday as a nationwide scorching was expected to peak in many places around the United States.
At least four cities – Boston, MA; Providence, RI; Reading, PA; and Newark, NJ – broke heat records over the weekend.
Intense heat and dry conditions are stressing U.S. agriculture, threatening corn, soybeans and other crops, as well as cattle herds.
A rapidly growing wildfire in California near Yosemite National Park has more than tripled in size since Friday night, threatening thousands of structures and forcing the evacuations of 3,000 residents, the authorities said.
Biden was experiencing body aches and other minor symptoms that “continue to improve” with treatment, three days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19, his doctor said in a letter Saturday.
Biden’s COVID symptoms are improving after his third full day of antiviral treatment, the White House said yesterday.
The White House confirmed that the strain of coronavirus that infected Biden several days ago is likely to have been BA.5, the highly contagious Omicron subvariant now comprising most new infections in the United States.
Public health officials have pointed to Biden’s case as a reminder of the risk posed by the highly transmissible subvariant.
More people checking for Covid-19 infections are choosing rapid, at-home antigen tests over PCR tests processed at laboratories, making variant-driven waves harder to track and helping to spur a retrenchment in testing capacity that labs had built up.
Biden touted falling gas prices in a series of tweets over the weekend as the national average for a gallon of gas fell below $4.50.
Steven L. Isenberg, a former publisher of New York Newsday and onetime chief of staff to New York Mayor John Lindsay, wrote in the Washington Post that Biden “should announce now that he will not run for reelection in 2024.”
The World Health Organization has dubbed the quickly growing monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, the highest alert level issued by the agency.
There have been more than 16,000 cases in 75 countries, overwhelmingly among men who have sex with men.
The feds might declare monkeypox a national emergency if they can’t get the outbreak under control, a top White House official said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took a personal tone in his criticism of Republicans opposed to codifying federal protections for same-sex marriage, saying marriages like his deserve to be safeguarded.
Buttigieg called out Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for his comments that a vote on a bill protecting same-sex marriage would be a “stupid waste of time.”
Florida Gov. DeSantis blasted Biden in a fiery address to roughly 1,500 supporters last night at a Republican fundraising event.
Recent strong job numbers should ease Americans’ fears of a looming recession, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who insisted the nation’s economy is slowing, not heading for crisis.
Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was convicted on Friday of contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Many of Trump’s allies in the conservative media believe the reports about violence and criminal conduct committed by his supporters on Jan. 6 have been exaggerated.
The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could face a subpoena from the special House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol if she does not answer questions voluntarily, the panel’s Republican co-chair said.
David Jakubonis, 43, the Army veteran who who attacked gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin during a campaign stop near Rochester was arrested on a federal assault charge.
FBI, New York State police and the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office personnel took him into custody. A six-vehicle motorcade entered Jakubonis’ apartment complex, and shortly after departed with the suspect in custody.
Republicans are accusing Hochul’s campaign of encouraging people to “stalk” and incite hatred of Zeldin — just hours before the Long Island congressman was attacked on stage during a Rochester-area event last week.
Prior to the Zeldin campaign event, Hochul’s campaign sent out a media advisory, titled “‘Big Lie’ Lee kicks off statewide ‘MAGA Republican’ bus tour,” to subscribers of its email list.
New York’s Democratic Party is asking for the Jan. 6 committee in Washington, D.C., to investigate Zeldin, alleging that he strongly supported Trump and “his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”
An attempted attack on Zeldin quickly set in motion the latest round of political combat over the effectiveness of the state’s bail laws. The recently updated data on bail outcomes, however, went undiscussed.
The NYPD was called in to protect Zeldin during a campaign rally in Queens yesterday evening.
Progressive state Senator Jessica Ramos unleashed a Twitter storm on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last night, accusing her of being absent in her district – the same argument the representative used to ouster her predecessor.
Ramos unloaded on the congresswoman after a med student complained about her canceling a health care forum.
Ex-New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio admits it was a “humbling” experience for him to drop out of his congressional race when he realized voters wanted to pick someone else — and says he may now work at a nonprofit.
A bill prohibiting the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in New York pet stores, passed by the Legislature in June, awaits a decision from Hochul.
Mike Long, the longtime chair of the state Conservative Party who used the third party’s clout to influence Republican policy in a blue state, has died. He was 82.
The Brooklyn-born political operative headed the Conservative Party for more than 30 years, from 1988 to 2019, and served a stint as an at-large member of the New York City Council from 1981-83.
While the state prepares for the first legal recreational cannabis sales, a coalition of activists joined forces with Brooklyn’s the Rev. Kirsten Foy to push for an accelerated expansion of New York’s medical marijuana market with a focus on minority involvement.
New York City developers and gaming operators are putting their chips on the table in a frenzied bid for the right to open local casinos, including in Times Square and Hudson Yards.
Mayor Eric Adams slammed panhandling on highways as “dangerous” after The NY Post reported that down-and-out daredevils have been risking their lives to plead for cash from motorists.
New York City subway riders say keeping safe on the transit system remains their No. 1 concern, according to a new MTA survey.
Sources close to the negotiations between the Adams administration and the City Council to restore funding to the city’s public schools said the deal has hit an impasse.
New York City triathletes braved scorching temperatures yesterday as a heatwave continued to bake the Big Apple — but some participants brushed aside the extreme weather. Race officials shortened the bike and run courses.
The City University of New York has become a “pervasively hostile environment for Jewish students,” according to a newly filed complaint to the US Department of Education that alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act.
Lower Manhattan groups have filed a lawsuit in a last-ditch effort to block the construction of a new tower in the South Street Seaport Historic District.
Over the past dozen years, Sanford Solny has built a New York real estate empire, snatching up small residential buildings across the city that churn out hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent. Much of it, prosecutors and homeowners contend, was stolen.
A nationwide surge in food and gas prices has hit particularly hard for some nonprofits serving vulnerable New Yorkers.
A rise in safety concerns over the last year have prompted MTA officials to beef up security technology in the subway, including plans to expand security cameras and install technology that sends alerts when trespassers are on the tracks.
A bipartisan group of City Council members is demanding the Biden administration stop sending migrants to New York, saying its crippling Big Apple homeless shelters and other critical resources.
A projected 207% more international visitors are expected to flock to Gotham this year as compared to 2021, city tourism officials said.
Rockaway Beach closed for almost 20 hours on Saturday and yesterday because of shark sightings, the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation said.
Sharks and other marine life are getting closer to the city’s shores in part because of cleaner and warmer oceans, experts say.
A Washington state man has been charged with threatening to shoot Black people at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., just two months after a racially motivated mass shooting left 10 people dead at another store from the same chain in the same city.
This weekend marked the first full-scale Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cooperstown since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold more than two years ago.
The decayed Wedgeway building in Schenectady may be headed for a new owner and a renovation but that doesn’t mean the city’s walking away from code violation charges filed against the current owner over the state of the building.
