Statistics

How Many Riders?
It's been estimated our carrousel gave rides to about 13 million riders during its days at Nat Park. Since it opened in Riverfront Park in 1975, it has averaged about 275,000 riders per year, for an additional 7,975,000 riders, bringing the total to almost 21 million riders!

How Many Rides?
We estimate that an average ride on our carrousel runs for 3 1/2 minutes with about 20 riders on board. During that time, the carrousel makes 14 revolutions at a speed of 7mph at the outer row of the platform. And since it opened in 1909, our carrousel has been operated for more than 1,000,000 rides and nearly 15,000,000 revolutions!

Click to see Athena on the Moon!

How Many Miles?
In its 14 revolutions per ride, the outer rows of our carrousel travel more than four tenths of a mile. So during their lifetimes, our carousel figures have each travelled more than 435,000 miles, the distance to the moon and most of the way back! And if you multiply 435,000 miles times 56 (the number of figures on our carrousel), that comes to 24 1/2 million miles, or 1000 times around the equator of the earth!

How Many Lights?
There are 180 lights on our carrousel, and all of them turn with the carrousel. Each light is a 25 watt clear light bulb.

How Many Mirrors?
There are 14 mirrors on each of the carrousel's 20 rounding boards (the curved section on the overhead section of the carrousel). Another 40 mirrors turn with the center section of the carrousel and there are 11 stationary mirrors in the center section, for a total of 333 mirrors!

How Many Rings?
Our plastic rings are supposed to be returned after each ride is over. However, a few rings do leave the building. How many? According to the Dana Saad company (who provide the rings for our carousel), our carousel requires 50,000 rings each year.

This means that there's about one ring taken for every 6 riders. So it's likely that about 3,500,000 rings have disappeared from our carousel since 1909! Occasionally when a concerned mother or father finds out that their children have borrowed a ring or two, they put the rings into an envelope (with no return address) and mail them back to the park!

Geri Giraffe

How Many Jewels?
A total of 1056 jewels have been used to decorate our Coney Island style carrousel figures. They range in size from 1/2 inch to 2 inches. All of them are European stained glass jewels with the exception of Geri Giraffe. She is estimated to be older than the rest of the figures on our carousel, and is decorated with mirrored glass jewels.

How Many Tails?
Our carrousel has 54 horses which require real horsehair tails. These taiils are estimated to require replacement every 10 years. Estimating 8 replacements plus the original tail for each figure, our carousel has required 486 tails since it was new!

How Many Pipes in the Band Organ?
Our Ruth band organ has over 300 pipes, the equivalent of a 60 piece band!