VIDEO: St. Catharines Lakeside Park Carousel’s early days still remain somewhat unknown

Midway hawkers calling, “Try your luck with me”
Merry-go-round wheezing the same old melody
A thousand ten-cent wonders who could ask for more
A pocketful of silver, the key to heaven’s door

When the late Neil Peart wrote the lyrics of the Rush song “Lakeside Park” in 1975, he was recalling his all-too-recent youth, being just 22 years old at the time.

The St. Catharines native, who dropped out of high school and was working for his father’s farm equipment company before joining the band in 1974, worked in Lakeside Park during the summer as a teenager. (Peart was born in Hamilton but the family moved to St. Catharines when he was a wee one.)

So it is of little wonder that the “merry-go-round” he mentions in the song is, in fact, the famous Lakeside Carousel. Granted, only St. Catharines residents would have known that at the time.

And while the carousel, still famously five cents a ride, is over 115 years old, there still remain questions about its beginnings.

Not huge questions, mind you. Who built it is well-known. It’s the when that’s something of a mystery. Sometime between 1898 and 1905 – a seven-year gap – is the best it can be pinpointed.

The first years were spent in Toronto’s Hanlon Point Park before it was shipped to St. Catharines in 1921 but precious little is known about the pre-Garden City days during that 20-year span before the wooden horses famously touched down in Port Dalhousie.

The reason Hanlon Point Park gave it up is vague. The purchase price remains unknown. However, the amusement park in Port Dalhousie had over 50 attractions by 1920 so the carousel virtually cemented its place as a bonafide tourist attraction as even in those early days, some 250,000 people visited it annually, many crossing various points in Lake Ontario on steamships.

Although there was originally a smaller merry-go-round there, the new carousel, which has 68 animals, including horses, lions, camels, goats and giraffes plus four chariots, was famously built in Charles I.D. Looff’s factory in Brooklyn, New York.

When Peart wrote the carousel was “wheezing the same old melody,” he likely didn’t know the music is played by an antique Frati band organ which uses a system of paper music rolls to serenade riders. What may have seemed to be repetitive noise to the late drummer in his teen years was actually steeped in history. That Frati band organ can be heard in the video at the end.

The young girl on the lion doesn’t know this but she’s sitting on the original Charles I.D. Looff lion, just one of five existing Looff lions in North America and the only one that has its head turned towards the crowd. A second lion on the carousel was built by the Friends of the Carousel in 2004 to replace one stolen in the 1970s. (All Photos: Friends of the Lakeside Park Carousel Facebook)

The carousel remains unique having four rows of rides, rather than the traditional three for a carousel of this size.

The city came precariously close to losing the carousel, which, like the other rides in the park were independently owned.  In 1950, Sid Brookson, who had managed Lakeside Park since 1928, purchased the park from the Canadian National Railway.

In the 1960s, the effects of pollution in the lake were becoming more evident and eventually made the beach unusable. In 1970, Brookson closed the midway and planned to auction off all the rides, including the carousel.

According to a Heritage Designation Statement written on the carousel’s behalf, a local antiques dealer, Dorothy Crabtree, recognized the importance of the carousel and wanted to see it kept in Lakeside Park. In 1970, she wrote a letter to the local paper, asking simply, “How many people really care what happens to the merry-go-round in Port Dalhousie?” The response from the public was overwhelming.

So the City of St. Catharines agreed to maintain the carousel if the asking price of $25,000 could be raised to purchase it. Crabtree was able to raise $20,000 by the deadline and Brookson lowered his asking price.

On July 13, 1970, Crabtree donated the merry-go-round to the citizens of St. Catharines but it came with a big request. The City had to keep the price at a nickel per ride with that price maintained to this day over 50 years later.

And that “Merry-go-round wheezing the same old melody” that Peart enshrined in rock lyrics, here’s a chance to sample what he was referring to.