Roller skating rinks on Long Island: What happened to the ones we lost?

Let the good times roll? Long Islanders have done exactly that for well over a century at roller skating rinks, those all-ages emporiums of fun and the not-so-occasional fall.

Roller rinks first opened on Long Island during the worldwide skating craze of the 1880s, both in converted music halls, as in Riverhead, and dedicated structures, as in Babylon. When the Great Depression shuttered many rinks, the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association — now the national governing body USA Roller Sports — formed in 1937 to revive the industry. A postwar "Golden Age of Roller Skating" followed through about 1959. At its peak of 18 million skaters and 5,000 rinks, roller skating, said National Geographic, was America’s "biggest participation sport."

And Long Island had its share of champions. Mineola in particular was a hotbed of great skaters who took first place in multiple categories at the U.S. Amateur Roller Skating Association’s inaugural national championships in 1942, held in New Jersey. The Mineola Skating Rink would host the 1949 and 1955 championships. The Levittown Arena / Levittown Roller Rink did so in 1960 and 1966.

But indoor rink skating by then had become a niche recreation; there were with only four rinks left on Long Island in 1974, in Bay Shore, Elmont, Hampton Bays and Levittown. Then roller disco, with music by live DJs replacing the traditional organ, ignited a pop-culture juggernaut: Linda Blair in "Roller Boogie!" Patrick Swayze in "Skatetown USA!" By 1979, the year of those films, there were a baker’s dozen rinks on the Island.

After this boom, another bust. Some rinks survived for a while by turning to roller hockey, which had first emerged in the early 1960s. Today there appear to be only four, dedicated indoor rinks left, in Greenport, Old Bethpage, Seaford and Shirley.

But the multitude that came before roll on in memory. 

Levittown Roller Rink

Hempstead Turnpike and Wantagh Parkway, East Meadow

Touted as "The Rink of World Champions," where top skaters trained and two national championships were held, the Levittown Roller Rink lasted 31 years before closing in 1986 — a blow that one patron told Newsday then was "like closing Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds." That the "Levittown" rink was actually in East Meadow bothered no one any more than baseball being played at a field named for polo.

It opened April 9, 1955, as the Levittown Arena, a newly built franchise of the company America on Wheels. With a 20,000-square-foot skate floor, a raised stage with an organ, a pro shop and more, it was billed as Long Island’s largest rink. Within two years it was renamed the Levittown Roller Rink, though both names were used interchangeably for a while.

"I spent the majority of the '80s hanging out at Levittown Roller Rink," said Holtsville’s Natalie Krempa, 53, a fiscal intermediary coordinator raised in East Meadow. "That’s where I learned to roller skate and went to many Girl Scout events and birthday parties, including my own ninth birthday party in 1980."

The late George Petrone was manager from 1957 until the rink closed. "George was loved by everybody," recalled Massapequa’s Charlie Steinert, 69, a retired TV-news camera operator. When Petrone underwent heart surgery in 1985, reported The New York Times, "50 regulars of all ages from the rink showed up at the hospital to cheer him up."

But Petrone was straight-laced. Very. While Levittown and a couple other Long Island rinks disallowed "blue denims, hot pants, T-shirts or bare midriffs," reported Newsday in 1972, "Levittown goes one step beyond — banning long hair" on men.

As Hicksville’s Gary Koslosky, 63, who worked for Petrone at both Levittown and at the manager’s next rink, recalled, "In the '60s and early '70s, if your hair touched the collar, he was there with a pair of scissors to cut it off," with permission, or else you had to leave. The blue-jeans rule applied only to men, remembered Karen Levine Voke, 68, of Palm Coast, Florida. 

For Krempa as a teen, the rink provided a place to be with her boyfriend "who lived in a different town. On Friday and Saturday nights we used to go for a couple years. We could skate together and hang out without parental supervision," she said, adding that parents felt their children were safe at the rink.

For many skaters, outings often ended at the adjacent ice-cream parlor and restaurant Jahn’s, part of a now-defunct chain that featured one particular, enormous dessert with an evocative name. "If there were more than six of us, we would order the Kitchen Sink," Krempa said. 

At least one concert was held at the rink: Canned Heat on March 16, 1972, with opening acts the Edgar Winter Group and Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels.

Levittown was America on Wheels’ most profitable rink in 1986 when the corporation closed it. The real estate value of the 3.7-acre lot, the company chief explained, had become too great to ignore. The property, at 2575 Hempstead Tpke., was sold to a now-defunct pharmacy chain and has since housed businesses including Deck & Den and Staples. A Sherwin-Williams paint-supply store is the current anchor.

Bay Shore Roller Rink

1850 Sunrise Hwy., Bay Shore

After closing Levittown, America on Wheels sold its other Long Island outlet, in Bay Shore, to the Manhattan-based Roller Rink Associates. Former Levittown manager Petrone and a partner leased it from the new owners — taking over a rink that had opened Nov. 16, 1960, and was well-enough regarded that it hosted the New York State Championships in 1975.

There, Koslosky was a rink guard, one of that cadre who kept order and helped in case of accidents. He wore a uniform of "black pants, a white shirt, a maroon-ish red vest, a tie with a skate and a maroon hat," he recalled.

Among events held at Bay Shore were a May 24, 1963, benefit to buy CB radio equipment for bedridden polio sufferer Al Kaufman, "who has been using borrowed radio apparatus to help pass the time," Newsday reported. A rally on Oct. 30, 1967, for John P. Fay, the Republican contender for Islip Town supervisor, attracted a reported crowd of thousands and featured a concert by big-band leader Woody Herman.

Ironically, the rink’s America on Wheels franchise-owner was Harry J. Kangieser — the Democratic-Conservative candidate for the post, who won and served from 1968-69.

As the years went on, the rink eventually became unprofitable, and on March 25, 2001, Roller Rink Associates closed what was then the Bay Shore Roller Skating Center. The abandoned rink fell into disrepair and was demolished in 2007. A new building, completed in 2010, housed a Lucille Roberts Health Club for several years. An urgent-care facility and a physical therapy group are the current tenants.

Hot Skates

14 Merrick Rd., Lynbrook

From third to seventh grades in Rockville Centre, where she then lived, Skinnygirl founder and former "The Real Housewives of New York City" star Bethenny Frankel "spent every single weekend from morning until probably 9 o'clock at night" at Hot Skates, which opened in early 1980 and closed on March 24, 2019. "My childhood was there," reminisced Frankel, 53.

Hot Skates became something of a TV star itself, with shot-on-location appearances on series including CBS’ "Kevin Can Wait," starring native Long Islander Kevin James, Netflix’s "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and ABC's "The Bachelorette" — where Roslyn-raised J.P. Rosenbaum took Ashley Hebert on a hometown date on the show in 2011.

Back in the day, "We were all very into Sergio Valente jeans. I had the comb in the back pocket" in the style of the times, said Frankel, who had reminisced about the rink on her 2010-12 Bravo series, "Bethenny Ever After." "You had to pay for each session — I think they were 12 to 2:30, 3 to 5:30, 7 to 9:30 — and every day they would do a race around the rink. And I was fast so I would always win, which is how I would get free tickets to come back and stay multiple sessions."

It was also a place of puppy love. "My first real kiss was in that roller rink," Frankel said fondly. "There were boys from Whitestone and Bayside" in Queens. "They used to come with their hockey jerseys. We had long-distance, roller-rink boyfriends."

And the place embraced the times. On Nov. 16, 1980, said an ad, you could skate with the cast of the seminal Broadway jukebox musical "Beatlemania." An ad for a music-themed event held three days later invited patrons to “[d]ress in your most outrageous ‘New-Wave’ fashions" and skate to the music of groups including Split Enz, Blondie and "The Klash" [sic].

After it was announced in October 2018 that it would be closing, the owners shuttered it that March and held an online auction for its equipment. Mequity Acquisitions LLC bought the facility, tore it down, and replaced it with a location of CubeSmart self-storage, which is still there today. 

United Skates of America

21 Hammond Rd., Centereach

No one ever called it "United Skates of America," say former patrons — it was just "USA." A national chain, it still has an outpost on Hicksville Road in Seaford. But it was the Centereach location, which opened circa January 1977, that hosted the one-and-only rink concert by the soon-to-be iconic Long Island band Twisted Sister.

Music producer-manager and former Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French confirmed to Newsday, “It was United Skates . . . April 13, 1982." adding, “I doubt I can confirm that Cintron opened but they very well could have." Frontman George Cintron did not respond to request for confirmation.

Twisted Sister "was probably the biggest name there," recalled Cathy Kadlec Daleo, 56, of Shirley, a self-described USA "rink rat" who added it was a hot spot for high school bands to play. 

And while "rink rat" is a generic, generally endearing term, USA had the Rink Rats — a proper noun, to hear them tell it.

"I started noticing these shirts all over the rink that said ‘Rink Rats,’ Daleo said. "They were the old-school black tees with the white lettering. On the back it said ‘We Are Family’ from Sister Sledge. And I decided, ‘Well, I'm a rink rat.’ So I made a shirt like that."

Despite corporate ownership, there was a "Brady Bunch" feel. "They used to let us in for free in-between sessions and give us dustpans and brooms and we'd clean up and then go behind the skate counter and hand out skates as the new session opened," Daleo recalled wistfully. In return, "We could keep skating and not have to pay to get in three times a day."

By October 1983, it was no longer USA but Great Skates. By September 1984, the discount liquidator Sands Salvage had taken over the space. Skating returned briefly there in the mid-1990s with A-Maze-N-Skates Family Amusement Center. Today? Another self-storage facility.
 

Wal-Cliffe

Belmont Boulevard and Johnson Avenue, Elmont

Opened in 1937 as an adjunct to the previously built Wal-Cliffe Swimming Pool — and variously known as the Wal-Cliffe Rollerdrome and Wal-Cliffe Roller Skating Rink — this was among the first of a new breed that emerged after the Great Depression had devastated the industry. Many of the few remaining rinks had become disreputable hangouts, like juke joints and pool halls. But Wal-Cliffe, directly across Johnson Avenue from an elementary school, would be family-friendly.

The "Cliffe" part came from brothers Milton and Wilbert Hinchcliffe, the "Wal" from a partner whose last name in different sources is Waldren or Waldron. Wal-Cliffe would go on to produce numerous skating champions, according to Skate, the official magazine of the Roller Skating Operators Association of America.

And it would endure nearly 50 years. Even an April 16, 1959, fire that destroyed the rink didn’t deter the owners — by then, the Sylvell Cinema Corp., leasing it to operator Bill Kaster — from rebuilding as the New Wal-Cliffe.

It eventually returned to its original name, and in 1981 changed hands again. New proprietor Anthony Filippi redubbed it Roller Castle and made $700,000 in improvements and modernizations, he told Newsday three years later. At some point, developer Andrew Zucaro owned Roller Castle, or at least the building, according to Long Island Business News.

Whatever the owner/manager lineage, the property sat vacant from mid-1986, when Filippi said he sold it, and once again burned down on Jan. 16, 1988. Developers Maxwell Krieger and his sons Robert and Steven soon after built today’s Carriage Town Houses on the rink and pool’s 3-acre site.
 

Hampton Bays Roller Rink

225 W. Montauk Hwy.

A 1980 item in Newsday asked, "What can explain Gin Lane's artist-in-residence Roy Lichtenstein sneaking off to the Hampton Bays Roller Rink?" The answer: The late pop-art star was taking lessons from Chris Calagan, the resident pro and son of the late owners, John and Frances Calagan.

"I had a friend who was an artist," reminisced the 71-year-old retired minister, now living in Keyser, West Virginia. "His name was Roy Lichtenstein and he was a real big modern artist" whose controversial appropriations of other artists’ comic-book panels have sold at auction for more than $93 million. "I had absolutely no interest in it," Calagan continued, "and that's one of the reasons we were such good friends. I taught him how to roller skate and he got to be pretty good, but he had to be really careful because of his hands and his arms, of course."

The rink had opened in the summer 1965, following a near tragedy during construction the previous Oct. 12, when the partially completed roof caved in. Two workers escaped unhurt; one had been able "to ‘ride’ a collapsing section of the roof safely to the ground," Newsday reported.

Steinert, who grew up in Queens in the 1960s, spent childhood summers with the family of his cousin, the late Victor Nolan, who lived in East Quogue and was a rink guard at Hampton Bays. "Victor took me roller skating every night," Steinert said. "It was the best time ever."

Part of what made it so was the small-town ambience where it felt safe for him and Nolan to "hitchhike from East Quogue to Hampton Bays all the time. Here I am, 12, 13 years old, hitchhiking. All the locals knew us, so they picked us up."

The Calagans, with whom he and Nolan were friends, sold the place in 1979 to the late Allen I. and Katherine Schiffman, who operated it through 1984, with Chris Calagan staying on as skating pro through 1981.

At least one event was held there afterward — a March 14, 1985, family skating party sponsored by the Home School Association of Our Lady of the Hamptons Regional Catholic School — which may have been a one-off rental of an otherwise closed space. By September 1987, the building had been converted to offices housing the local school district and, for a short time, a weight-loss company before its now decadeslong use as medical offices.