A vision for an old-time carousel in Berkshire County 10 years in the making is starting to spin its way to reality.Harkening to yesteryear, Tony Gubelman crafted an original score celebrating the journey of the Berkshire Carousel. Gubelman is one of some 400 volunteers who over the past 10 years have endured uncertainty about the future of the project and numerous location changes. Now the group has its dreams set on a vacant lot on the corner of Center and South Church streets in Pittsfield. Maria Caccaviello is the director of Berkshire Carousel.
“Pittsfield is our best match,” Caccaviello said. “It’s centrally located. People can walk to it. It’s accessible by car and bus. It’s right down from downtown Pittsfield so it’s perfect.”
The idea came from Jackie Shulman. Her husband is Jim Shulman, namesake of the longstanding Jim’s House of Shoes in downtown Pittsfield. Now living in Ohio, but having collected Pittsfield memorabilia like street signs and old fire alarm boxes, Jim Shulman wanted to showcase the relics in the city. But his wife made a convincing argument that a museum would only attract visitors once.
“What if we made a carousel?” Jackie Shulman recalled. “And had artists, carvers and painters? It’s art. It’s community. We help the community build a carousel. We could have little kiosks that you can put your collections in. Families can come. They can ride. Parents can look at your collections. You can do both.”
In the years since, volunteers began carving horses and gathering the pieces. The restored 1928 frame was built by the Herschell company of North Tonawanda, NY, according to Jim Shulman.
“Pittsfield’s first carousel, that I know of from pictures, was about 1902 up near the Berkshire Mall,” Jim Shulman. “They had a trolley park called Berkshire Park. It was a Herschell I believe. Herschell also made motors that were in automobiles. Pittsfield had three automobile companies…Sampson, Berkshire Auto and Stilson Six. Two of those, Stilson Six and I think Berkshire Auto, used engines that were made by the Hershel company in North Tonawanda.”
A carver from Ohio was brought in to train Berkshire Carousel volunteers for the 40 wooden horses included. Each one takes an average of 1,800 hours to finish. A board member of the National Carousel Association, Shulman says from the 1880s to the 1930s there were 18 carvers with their names attached to carousels working on three distinct styles of horses. Having carved the first horse, he says the Berkshire Carousel will be the only one in the U.S. to have works modeled after all 18.
“Now you won’t notice the difference,” Jim Shulman said. “A purist will come in and say ‘How could you mix a Herschell horse with an Illions’ horse, a Muller horse, a Dentzel horse, a Stein and Goldstein horse and a Carmel horse. You look at it and you just see how beautiful they are. So we have a hodgepodge, but it’s historically a wonderful story. And good to educate, we have a curriculum for kids on all the different carvers.”
Shulman says after 1930 another wooden carousel wasn’t carved in the U.S. until 1985. He says about four communities already have or are in the process of doing what the Berkshire Carousel is. Director Caccaviello says the project is benefitting from those efforts.
“We’ll actually have our workshop within the building,” Caccaviello said. “Because what’s happened is that from the good work that our volunteers have done we’ve started a small industry of restoration. We are getting a lot of antique horses to repair. It’s a nice sustainable income piece for us. Plus other carousels are calling up saying ‘Could you help us and carve a horse?’ So it’s a tribute to the work my volunteers have done.”
The carousel building will also house a café, gift shop and event space. Receiving monies from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and private donors, the 10-year project will cost about $4 million, Caccaviello says. The group needs to raise $1 million and gain interest from 160 more volunteers to meet their needs. If all goes well, the carousel could be spinning by December.
