Roundabout ride

It's all coming back to Janet Fernandez now, even if she's never been here before.

Those replica horses she's admiring, hand-carved from wood and adorned with roses, cherubs, and jewels? She remembers them, bounding up and down the carousel platform in Woodside Park, her childhood wonderland in West Philadelphia.

That little carousel jingle? It's still humming in her ears - part carnival ditty, part ice-cream-truck siren song.

Sure, at age 67, Fernandez now gazes up at life from a wheelchair, not from the tweenage frame of her memories at Woodside.

But with her husband watching and her daughter and two grandsons joining her onboard, Fernandez can say she has ridden a carousel again - the same carousel.

"To me, it's just a part of history, of growing up," Fernandez said of the 52-animal, 1,296-bulb structure, built by Philadelphia's Dentzel Carousel Company in 1908. A fixture at Woodside Park until the grounds' closure in 1955, the carousel was exiled to a storage warehouse in Gilbertville, Mass., for more than 40 years, then reintroduced last October at the Please Touch Museum in Fairmount Park after a $1.2 million refurbishment.

"It's just a work of art," Fernandez said.

Fernandez was there for the twilight of the carousel age in Philadelphia, around the Eisenhower administration. But is she now bearing witness to a resurrection?

Once the carousel capital of the world, with three major manufacturers operating here around the turn of the 20th century, Philadelphia went nearly four decades without an active structure before 2006. A Dentzel creation in North Philadelphia's Hunting Park was the last one standing for many years, before its relocation to Sandusky, Ohio, in 1967.

Now, the city has three: the former Woodside piece, one at Franklin Square that opened in 2006, and another at the Philadelphia Zoo, unveiled last October.

"Everybody's realizing the jewel that we gave up," said Todd Goings, the restoration expert behind the Dentzel renovations. "Now, we're working with what we have and trying to rebuild."

In recognition of Philadelphia's recent industry strides, the National Carousel Association is holding its annual convention in the city this year, planning stops at 10 area carousels over four days in September. Some highlights: merry-go-rounds at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom, in Allentown and Hershey Park; a trip to the 108-year-old "Soupy Island" carousel in Thorofare, N.J., where visitors receive a complimentary bowl of soup with their ride; and, of course, a grand finale at Please Touch.

"Dentzel would be considered the father of the carousel industry in the United States," National Carousel Association president Bette Largent said. "This is the highlight of many years of conventions."

Gustav Dentzel founded his company in 1870, settling in Germantown. By the early 1900s, a slew of rival manufacturers had joined the fray: the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, which survives to this day as a maker of roller coasters; D.C. Muller and Brother, with famed carver Daniel Muller, a onetime student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, as its front man; E. Joy Morris, a smaller producer based on Callowhill Street; and the Long Family, operating from North Philadelphia.

"This was the fastest people had ever really traveled," Stacey Swigart, the Please Touch Museum's curator of collections, said of the carousel's pre-automobile roots. "Three to five miles per hour was like, 'Whoa.' "

Collectively, the companies popularized the "Philadelphia style" of carousel-making, which called for vivid, lifelike detail on the animals.

The Hunting Park attraction was a prime example of such craftsmanship - and, in this case, teamwork. Originally built in 1925 by Dentzel's son, William, the piece was refurbished in an effort to display it at the 1938 World's Fair in Chicago. While the skeleton of the structure was in storage in Memphis, owners commissioned Muller to carve increasingly vibrant detail into the wooden horses. It became a vintage Philadelphia piece, one of the area's most iconic rides until its removal in 1967.

Indeed, with this city as its nexus, the United States harbored roughly 2,500 carousels from 1885 to 1930, according to the National Carousel Association.

Today, fewer than 150 are in operation.

Theories abound as to why the turn-of-the-century attractions went the way of the typewriter. Goings - speaking by phone from his Marion, Ohio, headquarters, where he is currently working to restore the last surviving Coney Island carousel - believes that post-World War II America placed a greater emphasis on thrill-seeking. Riders, he said, sought "something bigger and faster" than a monotonous parade of wooden steeds.

Others contend that an increasingly litigious, sue-first national ethos - coupled with more stringent safety standards - put the brakes on scores of aging structures.

"The fact that I survived my childhood . . . is miraculous," said Nancy Kolb, president and chief executive officer of the Please Touch Museum.

Rickety as they may have been, the rides clearly left an impression on Kolb. The museum acquired the Dentzel in 2005, on an 80-year lease from the Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission, at the cost of repairing it.

"When we started moving, we wanted to make sure that we reflected Philadelphia in the new museum," Kolb said. "I said, 'We need a carousel.' "

While Goings and the restoration team worked to pull a near century-old carousel out of the mothballs, developers at Franklin Square constructed their own from scratch for the plaza's 2006 opening.

The timeline has left both camps claiming the mantle of rediscovery.

"Since we were talking about carousels, Franklin Square got one and the zoo came in about two years ago with theirs," Kolb said.

Cari Feiler Bender, publicist for Historic Philadelphia Inc., says that Franklin Square became "the first of a new wave" when it officially ended the city's four-decade carousel drought. And not to be outdone by the carousel openings at the zoo and Please Touch, Franklin Square unveiled two new horses last year, modeled after thoroughbreds Smarty Jones and Afleet Alex.

Wherever the credit lies, riders of all ages seem to be embracing the renaissance. Please Touch has sold more than 267,000 carousel tickets since the ride opened in October. In the same span, the zoo has taken more than 110,000 for a spin on its rain-forest-themed attraction. (Franklin Square lacks specific carousel data but did welcome more than 730,000 guests in 2008, with the carousel, a mini-golf course, and a playground as its main draws.)

"It's relaxation, just going around in circles," said Liset Mirales, 40, a camp counselor for Timothy Academy, which has made the Franklin Square ride part of its summer itinerary. "You know kids like just going around in circles. They can go until they get themselves dizzy."

Some children even have an eye for the finer aesthetics. Four-year-old Sadie Fisher insisted on riding the Dentzel's crown jewel: a white horse festooned with flowers in its mane and a gleaming medallion bearing William Dentzel's initials.

"It had the roses and all the flowers," Fisher explained, a blue tiara on her head, eyes widening. "With gold."

Fernandez, meanwhile, was more than content to settle into her wheelchair-accessible spot - flashing a smile and a two-handed wave to her husband, Guy, with each revolution.

"Today's world, everything is instant gratification and fast-paced," she said, as three generations of the Fernandez blood dismounted the Dentzel. "This is just a nice, gentle, lovely ride."