In 1966, when I was in third grade, a girl who often bullied me at school skated by me at Wollman, grabbed onto me, and we both fell. To this day, I don't know if she lost her balance as she went by or it was an intentional the down. In any case, she got up and skated away, but I couldn't stand. I'd broken my leg. I can still see my mother flying onto the ice in her street shoes to rescue me. There was a nurse's station with cold, florescent light and I hopped in there. The nurse was elderly, perhaps a retired school nurse. I remember she had sizable warts around her eyes that pressed against the inside of her thick, black-framed lenses. I didn't know which was worse, the pain in my leg when she insisted I stand on it, or those fleshy warts. My mother and I waited hours for my father, a doctor, to show up at the rink in the family car, ushered along restricted lanes by a park employee, I guess. Dad took me to Special Surgery and I was in a cast from toes to thigh-top for two months. In recent years I returned to HSS for another injury--the hospital had my name and our 1966 address in its records. "Do you still live at...?"
114
Loved these wonderful pictures! The best thing about skating is that it's for everybody--young or old, male or female, rich or poor. It brings joy to all.
83
Though born in Queens, I grew up in Irvington-on-Hudson, on a small pond that froze thin and dark (before the first snow), but hard and smooth as glass around Christmas time back in the '60s and '70s. In early January, all the kids in the neighborhood would gather up all the Christmas trees that were thrown out on the street and would drag them down and piled them on a little island in the middle of the frozen pond. On a particular night, we'd light them up and skate around the bonfire. After the first snows, the ice was not nearly as smooth, and sometimes, depending on the weather, unskatable. We all had figure skates back in those days, even for playing hockey. The living fear of falling through the ice when it was thin, was an experience that public skating rinks never had the privilege to offer. The pond had a way of bringing the neighborhood together all year round, but especially in Winter when the pond became one big frozen and common back yard.
52
I grew up skating at Flushing Meadow Park in Queens. For Christmas, we always did Breakfast with Santa at Rockefeller Center and part of it was skating with Santa after breakfast. Our Jewish friend said would come too- such good memories!
38
oops- that was supposed to be “our Jewish friends would come too”
22
It is nice to see the old pictures, but what of the other boroughs? The name of the article is Ice Skating in New York, not Manhattan . Living in Queens we skated at Alley Pond Park, Crocheron Park, Bowne Park, Flushing Meadow Park. Why no pictures of those? It is always Manhattan or Brooklyn that the articles are about. Queens is the BEST borough.
37
Loved skating at the Wollman. My brother and I would bake four potatoes in the morning, wrap them in foil, and stuff them in our skates for the walk to the rink so that we could have nice warm skates - for an hour or so. After skating for awhile, we'd eat the cold potatoes for snacks. It didn't matter how cold it was or how crowded the rink was - we skated for hours and loved it.
Fast forward 25 years, and I sat in a warm indoor rink for hours watching my girls figure skate, coached by pros for $45 a session, and not enjoying themselves nearly as much as we did. They loved competing, but they never knew the joy of potato-warmed skates on a cold day in NYC.
142
Wonderful images and they remind me of growing up in NYC and learning to skate at Wollman Rink in the 1960s. Wollman Rink was also where I proposed to my wife (happily, she accepted). What's particularly interesting to me when I see these vintage images is how thin people were and how everyone wore wool or at least non-nylon outerwear unadorned with corporate logos (I'm taking to you, The North Face and Patagonia).
70
Reading this article and looking at the photos floods my senses with memories.
As a child of the UWS of the 1960's, every Saturday I went skating at Wollman Rink from 9 - noon. It was free. It was also only for kids.
The parents slept in while we kids hit the streets and the ice.
Those were the days, my friend.
95
I figure skated for years, taking many lessons as a teenager. My fondest memory, however, took place when I was a freshman at Cornell University. In those days we skated on Beebe Lake, surrounded by Ithaca’s magnificent gorges. It was great fun. Those days are gone but the memories are still sweet.
29
Great pictures...loved it. Thanks for posting
42
From Joni Mitchell's mournful album, "Hejira" (1976): "Now there are 29 skaters at Wollman Rink circling in singles and in pairs. . ."
38
Thank you for this. It's so nice to pause and read something like this for a change. The images are meaningful and make us appreciate the history of New York City.
85
@New Yorker I smiled all th e way through...living n Washington Heights during the 50's we had to get on the train, or bus and trek to a rink but ... it was worth it.
33