Visitors to Coney Island can once again enjoy the sights and sounds of the B&B Carousell, the last great merry-go-round of New York's most celebrated beach playground. Next to the towering Parachute Jump and near the boardwalk entrance at Stillwell Avenue, the B&B graces the new Steeplechase Plaza. Vividly alive in their authentic color and fierceness, the fifty hand-carved horses go round and around and around. The ride's equally historic and rare band organ adds a gentle and steady tune to Coney Island's thrilling cacophony of rickety roller coasters, drumming pop disco beats, and the distant cries of small children stepping into the waves. In the early 1920s, the B&B made its debut here. All except one of the B&B horses were originally carved by Charles Carmel, an authority on Coney Island carousels.* Back at the turn of the century, the island enjoyed two dozen or so of the merry-go-rounds. In 2005, when the B&B found itself the las
A strolling guide to New York City by Teri Tynes