You may recognize this hand carved wooden carousel on the Santa Cruz boardwalk from the 1987 vampire movie Lost Boys.
It still accepts daily riders after 110 years of use. The carousel was carved by Charles I.D. Looff, considered the greatest carousel carver of all time (a very obscure and niche distinction, in my opinion. Now I’m super curious about the wildly competitive world of carousel carving in the early 1900s).
The 73 unique wooden horses and two chariots are protected from the elements by a hippodrome of Looff’s own design. Circus music from an original 342-pipe Ruth and Sohn band organ still accompanies riders on this wonderfully kitsch artifact from a bygone era.