After purchasing the carousel, Nassau County stored it in a hangar in Mitchel Field, next to the Cradle of Aviation museum. The neglected carousel languished there "in obscurity" for nearly 10 years, "neglected", "gathering dust", the hand-carved horses "coated in multiple layers of chipped and cracked paint", and "some of the Victorian paintings on the carousel's panels [had] deteriorated beyond recognition. The horsehair tails on many of the horses [had] been shredded to mere stumps, and some were even shabbily replaced with pieces of cut-up black shag rug."
