The next year, McCurry announced another "complete renovation" of the park, adding a metal diving tower and several new rides. The 4.3 million gallon pool, which was the central part of the recreation facility, also included low boards, slide, water wheel, an artificial island for sun bathing, and a grandstand for spectators. [113]

There is a question regarding the success and ongoing operation of the park over the ensuing years of World War II. By 18 May 1945, however, the city's Board of Park Commissioners announced that it had voted to purchase the 60-acre Broad Ripple Park from Oscar Baur of Terre Haute for $131,500. [Some sources indicate, however, that Baur bought the park in 1927, sold it to McCurry in 1938, who then sold it to the city in 1945.] In that decision, however, the city decided to dismantle most of the amusement rides. [114]

The next year, the city decreed that the old amusements and stands, "rundown from several years of disuse," would be salvaged for wood and used in the park's new picnic ovens. The only rides considered usable were the narrow-gauge railroad and the merry-go-round. The chief attraction at the park under city control would be dancing, boating, swimming, and picnicking. City parks superintendent Paul V. Brown noted that the city wanted to make the park the "city's leading dancing mecca" and a "place in Marion County where parents can feel assured their sons and daughters can go to dance and at the same time be properly supervised." [115] In so doing, Broad Ripple Park passed from amusement park to a public recreational facility.

According to some accounts, the Broad Ripple carousel was built by the Mangels, a German family; however, the August 1981 newsletter of the Indianapolis Post Card Club claims the Mangel factory in Brooklyn altered the Dentzel carousel before transporting it to Indianapolis. Upon settling in the city, the family sold their carousel to the owners of Broad Ripple Park. For 10 years, William Hubbs owned and operated the carousel, before passing it on to other operators. One such successor was Mrs. Everett DuBois who ran a food concession in the park, and whose husband Everett was park superintendent, continued to run the carrousel after the city acquired the park. [116 A newspaper story about the carrousel, printed in February 1955, reported that the "merry-go-round stands in the same place, undaunted, but deteriorating with weather and age" after 38 years. That same year, the Indianapolis Art League, under the leadership of Mrs. Joe N. Niesse, mounted a massive restoration of the carousel and its ornate murals. The League also began to plan for the future restoration of "the merry-go-round ponies from their present appearance of 'nags' to that gayly [sic] bedecked and spritely steeds." [117 In 1962, the city agreed to give the old carousel to the Indianapolis Zoo. [118] Around 1970, the Children's Museum of Indianapolis acquired the carrousel which now occupies an important part of the museum's fifth floor exhibition space, carrying riders back to the early days of Broad Ripple Park. [119]

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