NEW YORK - Bryant Park isn't just for the birds and fashionistas and midtown Manhattanites on lunch breaks anymore.

Now, there's something for the kids, too.

An aqua-colored, 22-foot, French-style carousel with 10 horses, a rabbit, a frog, a deer and a cat -- and adorned with cherubs -- made its inaugural run in mid-June, much to the delight of dozens of children and their parents.

`JUST GREAT'

''This is just great,'' says Gretchen Ryan, of Rye, N.Y., whose children, Shay, 3, and Finn, 20 months, were among the first riders. ``I used to come here for lunch every day, but there was never anything for kids. This makes the park that much better.''

''Happy kids, happy adults, what's not to like?'' Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe says.

``There is no better sound than the sound of happy kids playing.''

But how can a carousel succeed smack in the middle of a business district?

''We're pretty confident that the kids will find it,'' says Dan Biederman, executive director of the Bryant Park Restoration Corp. ``Hey, its our first day and we're already doing great business.''

At $1.50 a ride, maybe he's right.

ALL NEW

The carousel, whose design is original, was built over six months by the Fabricon Carousel Company at its factory in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

It seats 18 and plays French songs like La vie en rose during its three-minute rides.

''We tried to model it after the park,'' Fabricon owner Marvin Sylvor says.

Bryant Park lies directly west of the Beaux Arts central branch of the New York Public Library the one with the famed lions out front.

The carousel, meanwhile, joins six others in the city and is one of only five in city parks, according to Benepe.

''But this is the newest -- maybe the most beautiful -- and certainly in the busiest spot in the city,'' he says, referring to the fact that Times Square is but a block away.

Says Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields: ``To just imagine and remember what this area looked like 10 years ago and to see it now is amazing.''

FULLY TRANSFORMED

Indeed, scant years ago, Bryant Park and the surrounding area were overrun with drugs.

The area has since undergone a renaissance and is now a popular midday-break spot for thousands of midtown workers.

So is the carousel really just for kids?

''Of course not,'' Ryan says, as her kids twirl by. ``This will be great for dates, too.''

And, Biederman says, if the demand arises, the ride will stay open as late as 11 p.m.