After nearly nine months of silence, Greenport’s historic carousel will be back in action this weekend.
The century-old attraction passed a key state inspection on Tuesday and will officially reopen with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, June 14 at 11 a.m., according to Village Trustee Julia Robins. The long-awaited event will mark the return of one of Mitchell Park’s most cherished landmarks — and a vital economic engine for village businesses.
The carousel will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week through Labor Day, and open until 8 p.m. on Saturdays all summer.
“We’re thrilled,” Greenport Business Improvement District board member Linda Kessler told the North Fork Sun. “We’re all jumping for joy.”
In recent years, the carousel has been shut down twice for major repair and remediation. In 2023, the village spent more than $60,000 after lead paint was discovered on its hand-painted ponies. Then, last fall, a significant mechanical failure brought the ride to a halt and forced the village to dismantle the structure — something that hadn’t been done in decades.
Originally built in the 1920s as a traveling ride meant to be assembled and disassembled, the carousel required extensive work to bring it back to life. Repairs included restoring the horses, replacing the main bearings and reinforcing the timber sweeps — the spoke-like arms that radiate from the central axis to support the platform and its rotating ponies.
Kessler said the ride’s absence has left a noticeable void in the park and on the streets of downtown Greenport.
Since the closure last September, “it makes Mitchell Park quiet, where now it will be alive again,” she said. “We’ll hear the music and see the children running around. And it’s not only just the children who love the carousel. This is a totally important asset to our community.
“If people are bringing their children in, then they’re eating ice cream, they’re shopping in the stores, they’re having lunch, breakfast or dinner at any of the restaurants in the village. So the BID community really embraces it.”
The carousel was acquired by Northrop Grumman in the 1950s for employee family events at its Calverton aerospace plant. When the facility was shuttered in the mid-1990s, Grumman donated the carousel to Greenport Village — following a spirited letter-writing campaign by local third and fourth graders that beat out rival bids from other municipalities, including Riverhead.