15th Carousel of Flavor moves to carousel site
After 15 years giving a taste of area restaurants on High Street, the Carousel of Flavor is moving to a new home — its own..
POTTSTOWN >> After 15 years giving visitors a taste of area restaurant fare in the middle of High Street, the Carousel of Flavor festival is moving to a new home — its own.
This year for the first time, the Carousel of Flavor Culinary Festival, set for Sunday, Oct. 14, from noon to 4 p.m., will take place at the Carousel building itself, 30 W. King St., across from Memorial Park.
The Derek Scott Saylor Memorial Carousel will be running, with music playing and lights flashing, with rides costing just $1.
Along with the great food, there will be face painting, music and a wine and beer garden. Food samples, sodas, water, wine and beer will be available for $2 to $6.
It will be held rain or shine.
And the location is not all that’s new for this year’s festival.
For the first-time ever, a cornhole tournament will be held with a grand prize of $400, $150 for second prize and $50 for third prize.
For those of you who don’t know, cornhole is a lawn game in which players take turns throwing bags of corn (or bean bags) at a raised platform with a hole in the far end. A bag in the hole scores 3 points, while one on the platform scores 1 point. Play continues until a team or player reaches (or exceeds) the score of 21.
In this case, the game time limit will be 30 minutes and the high score wins.
The deadline for registration, which is $25 per team, has been extended to 5 p.m. Saturday. Register at https:// www.carouselatpottstown.org — the carousel’s website and pick one of the age
brackets: Junior (10 to 17), Adult (18 to 59) or “Seasoned” (60 or older).
Both the festival and the tournament are sponsored by State Farm Insurance Agent Chris Rowe.
The other contest will be for which restaurant or caterer has the best food. Professional judges will award the restaurant vendors for their efforts in several “Best Of” categories.
For 15 years, the Carousel of Flavor has not only introduced thousands of visitors to the many area restaurants and their fare, it has also served as a fundraiser for the Carousel at
Pottstown, a non-profit organization.
The quality-of-life community revitalization project took nearly 20 years to complete and the carousel, PTC No. 9 was built in 1905. It is the second oldest operating Philadelphia Toboggan Company wooden carousel in the United States.
Its first home was at Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland, Ohio and it was the first carousel used at the park, debuting in 1905. By 1909 it had been replaced by PTC No. 19. The carousel moved then to Laurel Springs Amusement Park in Hartford, Connecticut in 1909 and remained there until 1925 in its original configuration.
In 1935 the carousel found a new home at Twin Grove Park in Pine Grove, Pa. Sometime in the early 80’s it was dismantled. With its original animals and decorations sold at auction, the “remnants lay in storage in Dallastown, Pa.”
Over many years of labor the carousel was rebuilt and restored all by volunteer efforts. New animals were commissioned from
Ed Roth, a master sculptor who also carved animals for carousels at Disney Parks. Local artists painstakingly painted and finished the animals and local contributors sponsored each animal and decorative panel.
The mechanism was updated and restored by local machinists and mechanics.
The building housing the carousel, the former Pottstown Metal Weld, was
obtained by the Borough of Pottstown and refurbished thanks to generous donations, sponsorships and hard won grants.
In the last two years, the carousel has provided more than 200,000 rides, board member Jim Arms recently told Pottstown Borough Council.
Adjacent to the Carousel is the Manatawny Green miniature golf course, which opens at 11 a.m.