Take a Night Ride on The Battery's New SeaGlass Carousel

BY CARL GLASSMAN

The SeaGlass Carousel is an instant hit, 10 years in the making.

From the moment it opened in The Battery on Aug. 20, long lines of eager visitors waited for a bobbing, twirling, three-and-a-half minute fantasy ride inside one of the carousel's luminescent fish.

Housed in a 35-foot-high, shell-like structure made of glass and stainless steel, there is no center post (the fish swivel on turntables) to block views of the 29 other “swimming” fish and their shimmering, changing colors. Daytime riders also get sweeping views of the park as they go around; at night, reflections in the glass walls, spinning by, provide an entirely different, other-worldly visual experience.

Classical works by Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Ravel, Prokofiev and Debussy, remixed by SiriusXM composer Teddy Zambezi, compounds the drama of the ride.

“Most New York City children will never scuba dive or snorkel,” said Warrie Prince, founder and president of the Battery Conservancy, who has shepherded the difficult $16 million project through its many years of development.  “It’s the simulation of them being fish, the wonderment that we’re trying to achieve.”

SeaGlass Carousel, located at The Battery near Whitehall and State Street, costs $5 per ride and is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. Click here [2] for more information.

Below, the people behind the creation of the SeaGlass Carousel, and a night ride video.

Warrie Price, President and founder of The Battery Conservancy.

"George Tsypin's idea about four turntables and this complex motion and these incredible monumental fantasy filled fish and that you are fish and that a child becomes fishlike and swims and experiences the magic of being underwater. We dream that a child will feel like what a fish feels swimming and love it and come back over and over again. We still will greet our six million visitors from around the world, but for New Yorkers and certainly for Downtown… I hope they embrace this as their neighborhood gift because it truly is a gift for Downtown."

Claire Weisz, Co-founder of WXY Architecture + Urban Design, architects of the nautilus shell. The firm conceived the idea for SeaGlass.

"During most rides, you're either amused or scared. This is a different emotion. It's intimate and kind of expansive at the same time. You actually feel elegant, and it's kind of floating. As architects, we all have this dream of building a fully immersive experience. Most carousels are in amusement parks where the whole point is the ride but not what's outside the ride... Here, the inside of the spiral pulls the outside gardens inside and looking through the roof through the portals of the figures give you views of the park that you have never seen before." 

Mark Yoes, Co-founder of WXY Architecture + Urban Design.

"The spiral is found everywhere in nature—it's a primordial geometric shape. The nautilus shell is  the basic geometric diagram that we used to develop this building. What that does is create a building that doesn't have a front or back because it's seen in 360 degrees. And when you are inside, you see through to the park, the gardens and the building, which along with the ride and the motion all work together as one experience."

George Tsypin of the George Tsypin Opera Factory, designer of the fish figures.

"Carousels, as we all know, were designed for horses. This carousel is completely reconceived. Instead of the slightly almost military rhythm, we did something totally opposite. It is something very gently and magical, and with the computer, we can program a movement that is quite complex, yet fluid. The idea was to create a little world, a capsule, a submarine. You get inside the fish and you observe the world around you, but at the same time you are the fish, and you are the actor because you are being observed. It is like a mini-opera and my hope is that it is slightly educational, that the children will think about the wonder of nature and also ask what is that music. And when they hear, 'Mozart,' they'll say, 'Wow.'"