Antique carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park

In the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, strains of old-fashioned music from an organ float over the river, mingling with the sound of children's laughter.

It's coming from one of the happiest little spots in New York City: Jane's Carousel, a twinkling antique jewel that spins in a see-through pavilion on the banks of the East River.

One afternoon in early autumn, just about everybody seemed enthralled by the rise and fall of the 48 hand-carved wooden horses as they rode in circles over and over in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

It was mostly young children emerging from naptime with their mothers, but even some hipsters in skinny jeans and Ray-Ban Wayfarers decided to stop and take a $2 ride, hanging their heads back and grinning as they went.

"I think the lights, the music, the horses, it just brings out joy in everybody," says Jane Walentas, the artist who spent years restoring the carousel to its original splendor.

Jane's Carousel is the latest attraction to hit DUMBO, an offbeat waterfront neighborhood that is slowly evolving from a deserted manufacturing zone to an upscale hipster hangout with art galleries, boutiques and million-dollar condos.

The carousel is housed in a clear acrylic pavilion, designed by the architect Jean Nouvel, and it offers stunning -- and weatherproof -- views of the bridges, the water and Manhattan across the way.

But Jane's Carousel is no native New Yorker.

It was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922, and for much of the 20th century, it stood in Idora Park, a popular spot in Youngstown, Ohio, then a prosperous city of steel mills. In 1975, it became the first carousel ever listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

At the time, Jane Walentas' husband, real estate developer David Walentas, had been commissioned to develop the land that eventually became Brooklyn Bridge Park, and he'd asked his wife to help him find a carousel to install there.

The Idora Park carousel was on the verge of being sold off piecemeal when the couple bid $385,000 to buy the whole thing.

Craig Whitney, 68, was admiring the carousel with his wife.

"It's been so perfectly restored. And in this setting, it's just magnificent," he said. "It's got sort of a hurdy-gurdy organ in it. That's something that was made a hundred years ago, and people still like to hear the sound. I think there's a romantic appeal to things like this from the past that make you feel good."