Iconic Manchester Mall carousel has been unseen in Fresno for years. What happened?
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Fresno’s Manchester Center has been a staple at Blackstone and Shields Avenues for nearly 70 years. It has a legacy and history that is front and center as the shopping mall navigates through its latest revitalization.
A piece of that history that has been missing for the past seven years.
But it hasn’t been lost, says Roland Molimard, the director and general manager of the new One Fresno at Manchester Center.
“The carousel,” Molimard says, “it’s at the forefront of our mind.”
“The carousel is an endeared and important artifact, not only to legacy of Manchester Center, but the generations of families that enjoyed and experienced it for decades,” he says.
“We recognize that. And we aim to preserve those memories in some form form our community.”
Where is the Manchester Mall Carousel?
The Manchester Carousel was purchased in 1998, and was one of several improvements made at the mall as part of a multi-year, multimillion-dollar expansion that linked the now-defunct Sears store to the rest of the center.
The carousel became an attraction for parents and children, and the so-call carousel court was a centerpoint for the mall for years. During the early 2000s, it was the chosen spot for an annual black-tie fundraiser for the Fresno Philharmonic.
According to an Ask Paula column in The Fresno Bee in 2010, the carousel was made by Chance Rides of Wichita, Kansas, as a a replica of an early-1900s carousel. The 36-foot-high carousel featured 30 horses carved in jumping poses plus two chariots on a revolving oak floor with beveled mirrors, spiral brass poles and a custom-made finial on the top.
The history of the carousel was written out on a plaque near its entrance.
It remained open and operating in some form until June of 2017, when it was dismantled and put into storage, much to the shock of those who remembered the carousel fondly. Management said at the time it had plans to relocate the carousel someplace within the mall. They later said it would become part of an outdoor events plaza being built between the mall and the Regal Manchester Stadium 16 theater that was hoped to be finished in 2018.
Neither of those occurred, though the carousel remains on site in storage, says Manchester’s manager Molimard. It will eventually return to shopping center in some form, as part of revitalization, he says, though it’s too soon to say when or how.
Until then, it is “being staged neatly and protected.”
