Coney Island Style Carousel
Posted by: 
sailor_dave
N 28° 21.977 W 081° 33.363
17R E 445513 N 3137904
A miniature carousel model of the famous Coney Island Carousels in the lobby of the BoardWalk at WDW.
Waymark Code: WM1A60
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 03/11/2007
Views: 166
These coordinates take you to the entrance of The BoardWalk at Walt Disney World Resort. In the lobby, you will find this carousel model.
M.C. Illions built this in the early 1920's as a travelling advertisement for his services as a carousel builder. The model is fully operational, including music being played as it rotates.
M.C. "Mike" Illions (1865-1949) - "Of all horse carvers," said Looff, "Mike Illions is King Pin."
Fleeing Lithuania to escape the Russian Army, it is speculated that Illions studied art in Paris or Germany before perfecting his craft in England, carving carousels and circus wagons before coming to the United States in 1888. He worked for Looff before opening his own business in 1909, Illions and Sons. One of the only carvers to sign his king horses, he also did religious art for synagogues and churches.
Marcus Charles Illions is recognized as one of the two greatest artists of the carousel world. His masterpiece horses have very flamboyant heads and fairly well decorated bodies. Illions carved all the heads for his horses himself. He was born in Russia where he began an apprenticeship building circus wagons. He traveled to the United States in 1888 with lion-tamer Frank Bostock, "The Animal King," whose wild animal show would become part of Dreamland Park.
Illions first carved carousel horses in England and then carved for Charles Looff in Brooklyn. He formed his own company in Brooklyn, New York, in 1909, carving initially for Mangels and then for himself. Although Illions' three most spectacular carousels (known as the "Supreme" models) have all been broken up, a number of his other carousels still remain. Examples of these are at Agawam Amusement Park in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the Zoo at Columbus, Ohio.
All of Coney Island served as a showroom for the Illions company, with ten of his of his shop's carousels operating from Brighton Beach Park to West Twenty-seventh Street. The Feltmans carousel was probably the finest that the master carver ever created. It remained in Coney Island until it was sold in 1964. When carousel orders dried up during the Great Depression, Illions fell on hard times and was reduced to doing repair work. He died broke in 1949.
In 1995, Disney purchased the model, and the Imagineers completely restored it to it's original condition.