Seaside Heights will acquire famed boardwalk carousel

The hand-carved carousel in Seaside Heights, a longtime boardwalk staple that was set to be sold in an auction, is back from the dead.

Borough officials introduced an ordinance Wednesday that would allow Seaside Heights to acquire the 104-year-old ride, coined the Dr. Floyd L. Moreland Historic Dentzel/Looff Carousel. The owners of Casino Pier - who were planning to sell it - would receive oceanfront property in exchange, according to the ordinance.

The man whose name the carousel bears said Thursday he was "ecstatic" about the plan. "I had an inkling that something was going on," said Floyd L. Moreland, 71, of Ortley Beach, who used to drive from Berkeley, Calif., to Seaside Heights in the 1960s to work on the carousel. "But I really thought this was the end of it. The carousel has been here for a very long time."

The carousel was built in 1910 in Philadelphia and came to Seaside Heights in 1932. Moreland acknowledged that, in recent years, ridership had declined, and that the damage on the pier caused by Hurricane Sandy didn't help.

But he still calls the carousel the "soul of the boardwalk."

"It would have broken my heart to see it go," he said.