Taking a Turn with Riverside’s Crescent Park Carousel

Photograph by Wolf Matthewson

For 129 years, the Crescent Park Carousel has drawn families to East Providence with its galloping horses and whimsical, circus-hued display. Woodcarver Charles I.D. Looff installed the carousel in 1895 when the Riverside neighborhood was home to an amusement park. The second carousel designed for the park, Looff used it as a showroom for prospective customers. (The first was carted off following a disagreement between the park’s owners, according to carousel manager Tracy Johnson.) “He would bring people in from all around the country,” she says. Johnson’s first encounter with the carousel was as a child growing up in Riverside, where she’d sweep the floor of the pavilion in exchange for free rides. “We always knew when the carousel was open because you’d open the windows and you could hear the organ music,” she recalls. Later, as a single mom, she handled administrative tasks for the carousel, eventually taking over its management full-time. Today, she officiates weddings among its horses and has welcomed everyone from a marching band to fourth-generation riders to the summer attraction. Though its memory remains untarnished, Johnson says the carousel structure is not so lucky. Later this year, the city plans to hire an expert from Ohio to repair its top and center bearings, the second phase of a two-part restoration project started in 2019. In the meantime, the carousel remains open at reduced capacity to ensure its horses continue their gallop for decades to come. “It really is an incredible piece of machinery,” Johnson says.