Abstract

Carousels evoke joy and nostalgia, drawing people across diverse backgrounds, yet their placement is often restricted to wealthier neighborhoods, limiting accessibility for many communities. This project seeks to explore and address these disparities through an interactive digital exhibit and mapping tool that visualizes carousel locations throughout New York City. Each carousel pin will feature practical information about the carousel including fee structures and visitor policies with layers to highlight neighborhood demographics such as income levels and density of homes with children across the city. Through this mapping and analysis, the project aims not only to illuminate existing spatial inequities but also to serve as a resource for families to discover accessible carousel options. The project will conclude with a reflective analysis offering recommendations for a more equitable distribution of carousels, inclusive fee structures, and enhanced community engagement strategies for future carousel installations in NYC.

List of Participants

• Project Manager: Kelly Karst
• Digital cartographer: Carla Ordonez, Leonard Santos
• Photographer(s): Leonard Santos
• Data analyst: Carla Ordonez
• Field workers: All staff members
• Website Developer: Kelly Karst, Leonard Santos
• Social Media: Julissa Russo
• Graphic Design: Julissa Russo

Narrative

Enhancing the humanities through innovation

Carousels have brought joy to New Yorkers since the 1840s, with the first two installed in the now-lost amusement parks of Vauxhall Gardens and Jones Woods (Bartash-Dawley). Today, carousels can be found across New York City’s five boroughs, though they are notably concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn, often in affluent neighborhoods. While these carousels appear on digital mapping platforms like Google Maps, these platforms do not offer a comprehensive view to easily identify carousel locations or provide logistical details such as fees and policies, which vary from one carousel to another.

The NYC Carousel Mapping Project seeks to address these gaps by creating an accessible, interactive map using ArcGIS that highlights where carousels are located and, crucially, where they are missing. This map will overlay socio-economic data—such as income levels and the density of households with children—to identify areas in need of carousels or other low-cost recreational spaces. Evidence shows that accessible recreation is vital for community well-being (Sullivan and Chang) and social equity (Beck, et al.l), while newer carousels themselves have been tied to larger projects to increase their neighboring real estate value (Bagli), (Ronderos, et al.), (Rosin) . With the City of Yes legislative initiatives promoting urban development, now is the ideal moment to advocate for these spaces.

In addition to serving as a tool for urban planners and policymakers, the project will benefit local families, visiting families, and carousel enthusiasts by simplifying the process of planning carousel visits across the city. The platform will be hosted on WordPress and designed to work on computers or mobile devices with an intuitive design where users will see a map with pinned markers for each carousel. When clicking on the pins users will see a summary of information including an image of the carousel, the name of the carousel, date created, borough/neighborhood, fee structure, important carousel policies, and a link to input directions. An optional layer can be clicked to see how the carousel locations land along income lines and homes with children based on information found on NYC Open Data and the NYC Population Fact Finder.

Environmental Scan

This sort of project falls under the cultural asset mapping method which has been utilized a number of times, and sufficient documentation exists on incorporating this methodology. In that vein, carousel maps exist such as Carousel History’s Operating Historic Carousels – North America and Historic Lost Carousels – 1880s – Present and the National Carousel Association’s Carousel Census Map which utilize INEGI/Google Maps. However, these maps do not focus specifically on New York City, and are limited to “historic” carousels, and therefore do not include all the carousels currently in operation. The pinned information is limited and their purpose is to complement the larger website which celebrates the historicity and artistic value of the carousels, rather than providing practical information for potential visitors or those seeking to develop recreational facilities.

The HueArts NYC Map & Directory which maps art entities founded and led by people of color in New York City. This project utilized ArcGIS to create an interactive map whose pins symbolically represent the art discipline of the art entity (ie: Music, Dance, Art Gallery, Literary Arts, etc.) on a map of New York City’s five boroughs. Users can either search by keyword to locate art entities, browse through a provided list, or browse through the map pins. Each pin includes a small amount of supplementary information about the art art entity such as the community it serves, its location, and website. This collaborative project came through to fulfill a need to highlight art entities by people of color in the city, while also providing data to advocate for increase funding and support of these entities.

Similarly, the Bronx Council on the Arts Cultural Asset Map also utilizes ArcGIS and data incorporated from NYC Open Data to map to highlight arts and cultural offerings in the Bronx. The project invites individual artists and larger projects or organizations to submit their information to be included on the map. Beyond exploring the pins on the map, users can also select various layers such as zoning districts, construction years, and green spaces to paint a larger picture. The purpose of the map is to both highlight these cultural assets while also advocating for their continued preservation.
The CAMP: The Cultural Asset Mapping Project from the municipality of Austin Texas was a community oriented project which asked participants to map cultural assets in the city that felt important to them. In so doing, they created a directory, report, and map of nearly 3,000 points. Users are encouraged to discover sites, bridge connections between cultural organizations and projects, and for developers to keep in mind existing communities and their strengths to avoid displacement and work towards continuity of cultural community strengths. The map platform utilizes Open Street Map and Carto to map points using differing colored dots to represent the cultural asset by type (ie: Public Art, Organization, Event/Festival, etc.). Each point houses a small set of information such as the name, district, and website of the cultural asset.

The Carousels of New York City mapping project aims to continue this work by creating a space specific to currently operating carousels in New York City to be both be used as a practical tool to easily locate carousels, but also to provide a snapshot of important logistical information for those that wish to visit them. With that aim, we will bear in mind the tenets of minimal computing (Risam and Gil) to try and create a simple website to host our map with the aim of allowing for its use across various devices and with varying levels of internet access and computational speeds. Further, like the projects above, it aims to act as an advocacy tool to provide a clear visual representation of where carousels may be lacking, and where new ones could be considered either by developers, private entities, or New York City’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Work Plan

This project will culminate in a layered ArcGIS map which pins all the carousels in current operation in New York City with supplementary information on the location, fee structures, and policies of each carousel while also allowing the user to choose layers highlighting the income levels and the density of households with children on that map. As such, data collection, data analysis, map building, original photography, website building, and visiting or calling the carousels to understand their fees and policies will be the bulk of the project.

Data Collection & Analysis

Project staff will use tools such as Google Maps and publicly available data on NYC Parks/Recreation websites to locate carousels locations across the city and collect their GIS/spatial data. Staff will be assigned to visit and/or research carousels and fill out a Google Form. The data collected on the Google Form will be used to start a spreadsheet which will include information such as the carousel name, fee structure, policies, contact information, and website (if available). Staff may need to call or visit the carousels in order to fully understand the fee structures and policies, and will be encouraged to ride the carousels if possible. While visiting the carousels, staff should take original photographs to be embedded into the map data point, corresponding website, and possibly for social media.

Data will also be collected from either one or both of the platforms NYC Open Data and/or NYC Population Fact Finder. Extracted data should focus on income levels and density of households with children. This data will likely need to be cleaned to highlight only these data points.

Map Building

Once this information is collected, staff will begin the map building process in ArcGIS with an initial focus on mapping the carousels and creating a unique pin that exhibits the fun character of carousels. A few major data points (such as the carousel address and price) will be included in the map snapshot of information on the carousel, but will also link to a supplementary webpage with more information about the carousel created on the hosting website.

From here, two layers will be added to optionally view the income levels and density of families across the city. Color shading may be implemented to decipher income level differences.

Website Building

Once the map is complete, staff will develop a simple website using the WordPress platform to display the map. Graphic design choices and imagery will be created to align with carousel aesthetic. Supplementary pages on the site will include spaces for a brief analysis with recommendations for current and future carousels, a space for community input, and information about the project and staff members.

Staff

The project will be led by Kelly Karst and executed with a group of 2-4 graduate level students. Staff members will likely be responsible for more than one task depending on subject knowledge and technical expertise. 

• Project Manager: Kelly Karst be in charge of project management while also working on the project website.

• Digital Cartographer: Carla Ordonez with experience with ArcGIS will lead the development of the layered map based on the data collected by the staff. Leonard Santos will provide support.
• Photographer(s): Leonard Santos will take original photographs of the carousels and choose one to represent each carousel on the digital map.
• Data collection and analyst: Carla Ordonez will collect data on:
  • Where carousels are located in New York City including GIS information, the textual address, contact information, website, fee structure, and visitor policies.
  • Income levels across New York City based on data collected from NYC Open Data and/or NYC Population Fact Finder.
    • This information will need to be extracted from the larger data sets available on these platforms.
  • All information will be consolidated into a spreadsheet provided to the digital cartographer(s).
• Field workers: All staff members will visit and/or call/email carousels to determine information such as their fee structures and visitor policies.
• Website Developer: Leonard Santos and Kelly Karst will create the structure of the website and embed the digital map on the site and upload text to be included in an about section and essay on recommendations for future carousel development. They will also incorporate means for visitors to the site to contribute comments.
• Copy Editor: All staff will be responsible for writing copy for their deliverables as well as any needed communiques for emailing carousel staff for information as well as to potential media for dissemination.
• Social media: Julissa Russo will be responsible for creating and maintaining the social media account. This includes creating content and creating an organizer of the content to post.  Social media accounts includes Instagram and potentially TikTok.

Final Product and Dissemination

The final product will be a digital map hosted on CUNY’s Academic Commons WordPress website. Efforts will be made to reach out to potential audience members and media outlets for dissemination. New York City family centered websites and social media platforms such as Brooklyn Bridge Parents, Park Slope Parents, Mommy Poppins will be asked to include the carousel in upcoming newsletters, website features, and/or social media posts. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation will be contacted to similarly consider adding our map to sites for carousels they currently manage. We will also include our commentary on recommendations for future carousel considerations for possible use in advocacy for city budget planning. Major developers and development project coordinators may also be contacted to request consideration for new carousels in areas determined to have a gap in carousels with  large densities of households with children. Potential outreach may include reaching out to carousel, digital humanities, and/or mapping experts for guidance and building enthusiasm for the project.

The social media lead will create an individual social media space that will  highlight all carousels. Content will be created based on the information gathered about each carousel.   The social media account will direct the audience back to our main website.

Future projects could include a history of each carousel with research essays conducted by students interested in contributing. A foreseeable challenge will be maintaining an up to date website when fee structures or visitor policies change, or if a carousel closes, or if happily, a new carousel opens.

Works Cited

Bagli, Charles V. “Battery Park To Try Again With Offering To Developers.” New York Times, 16 Jan. 2003.

Bartash-Dawley, Linda. Carouseling New York: A History. Self-published, 2013.

Beck, Helen, Berney, Rachel, Kirk, Brian, Yocom, Ken P. “Building Equity into Public Park and Recreation Service Investment: A Review of Public Agency Approaches.” Landscape and Urban Planning, vol. 247, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2024.105069.

Fitzsimmons, E. “New York City Approves a Plan to Create 80,000 New Homes”, New York Times, 5 Dec. 2024.

Risam, Roopika and Gil, Alex. “Introduction: The Questions of Minimal Computing.” Digital Humanities Quarterly Vol 16, no. 2, 2022.

Ronderos, N., Jones, C. “The Impact of Hudson River Park on Property Values.” Regional Play Association, October 2008, https://rpa.org/work/reports/the-impact-of-hudson-river-park-on-property-values

Rosin & Associates. “Brooklyn Bridge Park Assessment Analysis.” 2016, https://thebha.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2.1.2_PIER_6_ASSESSMENT_ANALYSIS.pdf

Sullivan, William C., Chang, Chun-Yen. “Mental Health and the Built Environment. In: Dannenberg, Andrew L. Making Healthy Places : Designing and Building for Health, Well-Being, and Sustainability. Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, 2011, https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-036-1.