New Yorkers Are Crazy About Roller-Skating (Again)

Earlier this spring, a party raged on the third floor of Showfields, an experiential retail store in Manhattan. To get there guests rode in an elevator lined with gold tinsel and a mirror.

On the third floor were about 20 masked people, dressed in neon shirts and sparkly pants, grooving on roller skates, some of which lit up as they moved. Under a disco ball, a D.J. played hip-hop while skaters spun in circles and got lost in the music.

“Oh, my gosh, it was great,” said Lionel Laurent, 45, a skating instructor who before the pandemic made money by performing in Times Square. “Clubs are not open, so we are doing this.”

Roller-skating is in vogue these days, but longtime New Yorkers have seen it all before; during the second half of the 20th century, skaters would dance all day in city parks and party all night in New York’s multitude of indoor rinks.

“The Roxy, it was fabulous, especially in the ’80s,” said Bob Nichols, 74, of Manhattan, a retired film editor, reminiscing about the famous rink and club in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. “People would dress up in skating clothes, these outfits that looked like they belonged to trapeze artists. You just had to stay away from the people drinking. When they fell they would try to hold onto you.”

Cynthia Brown, 64, a retiree who now lives in the Bronx, frequented the Empire Roller-Skating Center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “We used to love dancing to Stevie Wonder back in the day,” she said. “It was the perfect beat; you just flowed with the music.”