A Message from the Board By Ida Dupont, Vice President After our first election in 15 years, a new leadership has taken the helm. Much has happened already. First and foremost, after many years of lobbying, pushing, and pleading by Bob Nichols and then Rob Scott, we were gifted by a generous anonymous donor with […]
Announcing the CPDSA Board of Directors Elections By Bob Nichols, President, CPDSA. […] At the end of the 2022 skate season, after 28 years of dedicated service to the CPDSA—15 of which I served as President—I will be stepping down. We never held elections for the Board of Directors (BOD) before. We simply asked the […]
Springtime for Roller Skating in Central Park — This has been a very unusual spring for skating in New York City. After many years, two famous ice skating rinks — the Wollman and Rockefeller Center — have opened for roller skating in the warmer months. Suddenly, there are a number of alternatives to the Skate […]
A banner year for Roller Skating in New York — This is a banner year for Roller Skating in New York, with two high-visibility, well-publicized outdoor rinks opening. “Flipper’s At The Rink” at Rockefeller Center is already open and has featured some of our favorite New York Skate DJs. “The DiscOasis Central Park—A Roller-Disco Paradise” […]
Look Ahead — […] Many people have helped us over the years, starting with the people from the Parks Department and the Conservancy who took a chance on us in the beginning: Doug Blonsky and Neil Calvanese. There were many other Conservancy people who worked with us over the years in a friendly problem solving […]
Where we are coming from — There has been Roller Skating in the area around the Bandshell and Mall for many years. We have a poster from a Parks-Department-sponsored Halloween roller-skating event from 1936 and photos of young kids skating in the area in the 1940s. People have been skating on Dead Road from the […]
Happy Birthday CPDSA! — […] The CPDSA is a large blended family. Many of our original skaters have scattered to the winds; some — too many — are perhaps a part of the wind, now. Our roots go deep into the heart of Central Park. The Skate Circle began with a symbolic action, painting two […]
The Pandemic may have been a boon to rollerskating. During that year of homebound social distancing and lack of exercise, roller skates were a passport out of the house. You could skate on your own or with a friend and feel free. It helped a lot of young people ride out months back in their […]
A Difficult Summer— This summer has been difficult for the Skate Circle. We have suffered uncertainty and disruption after losing our storage space in the park; which makes it a great deal more difficult for us to get our sound equipment into and out of the park every day we skate. Still, with perseverance and […]
A Glimmer of Hope— As we prepare to celebrate the CPDSA’s twenty fourth Birthday on the 4th of July, we find ourselves more in survival mode than in a party spirit. After only three months of trucking our equipment into the park, our volunteers and our bank account are almost exhausted. Of course, we are […]