Monroe County does not plan to alter a controversial portrayal on the carousel at Ontario Beach, despite calls by some local residents to do that.
The controversy began recently after publicity about one of the panels on the 110 year old Dentzel Carousel at Ontario Beach. The illustration depicts two black children in an exaggerated manner that several people at a meeting this week said was racially offensive.
Those comments came at a meeting of the Rochester Preservation Board, and city officials say that any changes to the carousel would have to be initiated by the county which operates that property.
Some of the people at the meeting said they wanted the panel taken down.
A county spokesman issued this statement:
“We have been in dialogue with the Landmark Society. The 110-year-old carousel, which appears in its original state, was designated as an official landmark by the City of Rochester in 1980 and we have no plans to alter it.
The County has begun the process of contracting with the Landmark Society to research the carousel as an historic community resource and develop interesting interpretive panels that will address, in a scholarly and descriptive manner, all aspects of the carousel, from its hand carving and manufacture by German immigrants in Pennsylvania and placement at Ontario Beach… to its extensive restoration in the 1990s and present day significance as one of the few such carousels to remain in its original location.
Included among these interpretive panels will be one that deals with the specific rounding board image in question as a teachable moment for those who view it. Our goal is to have these panels in place for the carousel’s opening of the 2016 season, which will be its 111th year at Ontario Beach Park.”
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren hopes that all of the publicity about this depiction can be used to teach people about the negative history of that carousel illustration.
"I believe that this is an opportunity to make it a teachable moment where we're able to actually talk to our young people and talk to people about what this image was about and how offensive it is today but i do believe that we cannot take away the history of it," Warren said on Thursday.
Howard Eagle, a city resident who called for taking down the panel at a Preservation Board meeting this week, says he still wants the panel to come down.
His statement, upon hearing that the county won't take the panel down, was that, "The garbage, pickaninny, so-called "art" MUST come down --- period."
