South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
New Rockefeller roller rink
In midtown Manhattan starting later this month, get ready to show off your skating skills
NEW YORK — The winter ice-skating season may be drawing to a close at Rockefeller Center, but this year the party will continue after the ice thaws. Get ready for roller-skating.
For the first time since 1940, a roller rink will occupy the sunken plaza at the heart of midtown’s art deco complex. Tishman Speyer, the owner of Rockefeller Center, has contracted with Los Angeles-based Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace for the project.
Once the ice rink closes, its enclosing walls will be lifted out of the plaza by crane, to be stowed away until the return of the ice skating season next winter, and a smaller rink will take its place. The new rink is scheduled to open April 15; tickets ($20 for adults) are now on sale.
With the move to a wheelfriendly rink, Rockefeller Center seems to be embracing the retro roller-skating craze that took off during the pandemic, harking back to the days when rinks dotted the city. (The LeFrak Center at Lakeside in the city’s Brooklyn borough, another established rink, also has both ice- and roller-skating, depending on the season).
The Rockefeller roller rink is also part of Tishman Speyer’s attempts to rebrand its complex as a happening place, hip enough to attract locals as well as tourists and office workers (most of whom are still not back on the premises).
The company has been bringing in new retailers and restaurants, like Lodi, an Italian cafe and bakery, and Rough Trade record store, formerly of Brooklyn. Most recently, the new Pebble Bar, in which actor Jason Sudeikis and “Saturday Night Live” cast member Pete Davidson are investors, was the site for the premiere of “The Batman” after-party.
Liberty Ross, the founder and creative director of Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace, is the daughter of Ian (“Flipper”) Ross, who opened the original Flipper’s roller rink in Los Angeles in 1979. Located in a former bowling alley, it had murals by John Kosh, a graphic artist who also designed the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album. The rink attracted celebrities including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jane Fonda and Laura Dern, then a teenager.
Ross, a fashion model, wrote a book about Flipper’s and now has joined forces with entrepreneur Kevin Wall, who grew up working at his own parents’ roller rink in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to resurrect the brand. They have plans to install rinks in London and Los
Angeles. The New York Flipper’s, designed by Alexandre de Betak, a fashion show producer, will be the first to, ahem, roll out.
There will also be a skate store at Rockefeller Center. To find it, visitors will be able to use a new marker: a monumental sculpture in the shape of a trowel by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The store, just west of the sculpture, will stock the classic ankle-height four-wheel “quads” that were worn at the original Flipper’s — with a royal blue suede boot and red laces and wheels. The same skates will also be available for rent at the rink.
The owners of Rockefeller Center have long tried to find ways to liven up the plaza and draw visitors to the shops in the underground concourse around it.
After the complex opened in 1933, the concourse stores languished because people didn’t want to schlep down the steps to the plaza and back again. Then someone hit on the idea of installing an ice-skating rink. It opened in 1936 and has been in operation every year since.
Roller-skating was briefly tested out there in 1940. Tennis courts came and went. The plaza has also been the site of flower shows and concerts, including Aerosmith in 2018.
The roller rink news coincides with the completion of a year-anda-half renovation of the concourse. What was previously a dim, lowceilinged space is now more open and light-filled, with exposed ceilings, new art deco-inspired bronze details and floor-to-ceiling storefront windows overlooking the plaza that pivot to allow people to pass in and out.
Restaurants in the concourse will open this summer, but they have been placed away from the windows, so as not to block the view of the rink or natural light, the way the old ones did. There are also takeout options in the underground corridors.
Because the roller rink will be about half the size of the ice rink, there will be room on the plaza for tables and chairs so people can bring food outside and watch all the action. Programming will range from “meditative” early morning skate sessions to disco nights, Ross said. There will be gospel music on Sundays.
Ross envisions the project as entertainment for onlookers as well as a potential home for skaters at a time when few roller rinks are left. “Most people skate for that sense of freedom,” she said. “I feel like it’s going to be an injection of joy, community and unity, which is very much needed right now.”