Wednesday Night Skate Blog

We were promised rain-free weather for our August 26th event, and it was a pleasant and sunny day.

Then suddenly it started to drizzle, a few drops here and there, at exactly 7:45pm. Talk about luck — or lack thereof. On a day when it wasn’t supposed to rain, we started getting hit with a few drops.

As stated before, on rainy days we try to avoid going over any bridges.

But enough was enough. So we did our venerable Three Bridges Skate, risking the possibility of being rained on.

And guess what? We got rained on, during our trek to and over the third bridge.

No big deal though, nearly all of the skaters took it in stride. Some even remarked that the rain was “refreshing”, given the extreme humidity the city had experienced recently. Skaters really are the best.

But let’s hope the New York City weather “forecasters” can start getting it right.

Our August 19th skate seemed doomed — it was 94 degrees during the day and thunderstorms were moving in. Luck was on the Wednesday Night Skate’s side however, as these storms seemed to fall apart as they reached the city. The group of 42 brave skaters ended up only having to deal with overcast skies — and some serious heat & humidity.

The WNS Staff decided to skate up the West Side Path to start the night off. The path is always great — it’s smooth, provides long stretches of uninterrupted skating, and takes us past the stalwart Intrepid Museum.

After passing the Intrepid, we skated into a small oasis just off the Path that doesn’t seem to get the attention that it deserves: Clinton Cove Park.

Beautifully kept, Clinton Cove Park falls under the umbrella of the larger Hudson River Park. One of the most interesting attractions in the tiny park is Malcolm Cochran’s Wine Bottle sculpture. Inside this large sculpture is a “home” complete with small rooms and a toilet. You can’t go inside of it, but there are windows and portholes that give you a view of what’s inside. It’s actually bigger  than most New York City apartments.

After Clinton Cove, we headed further uptown to 72nd street, eventually turned onto 9th avenue, and soared down to 28th street. From there, we used the bike line to get to Bleecker and the surrounding areas. Despite the threatening weather and the extreme heat, we pulled off another great skate.

A web surfer was interested in seeing what early inline skates looked like. I think that’s an interesting topic, so I decided to delve deep into the history of skating, starting with the creation of roller skates. Here’s what I found.

The first officially known roller skates were invented by a Belgian named John Joseph Merlin. In the mid-1700’s, he created these skates from metal wheels attached to a metal plate, which in turn could attach to his shoes. His skates, and other inventions, earned him fame in Europe. During a masquerade party at the Carlisle-House in London, Merlin wore his roller skates. During the party — while playing a violin — Merlin ended up losing control on his skates and crashing into a mirror.

This is why, to this day, we recommend wearing helmets and wristguards while playing your violin on skates at house parties.

The first patented roller skate appeared in France in 1819. It was made of wood, with wooden wheels, and the wheels were lined up in a row, much like today’s inline skates. They were referred to as “rollers”, and I’ve noticed European skaters often refer to their skates as “rollers”, so maybe that’s where all that started.

Robert John Tyers patented a skate in London that was rockered, allowing the skater to do turns, in 1823. By 1840 in Berlin, beer hall waitresses were on roller skates, in order to save time while serving beer.

It appears the combination of beer and skating is not a new idea after all.

In 1863, James Leonard Plimpton, of some place called New York City, patented a skate that had two wheels in the front and two wheels in the back. It’s interesting that “inline” skates existed first, and the roller skates came later. Take that, dance skaters.

The article on Wikipedia shows a picture of a man on skates in 1910. I’m not convinced it’s real, but if it is, it’s amazing how much they look like those Landroller skates that you see skaters wearing once in a while.

From there we jump all the way to 1979, when Scott and Brennan Olson of Minnesota designed a new pair of skates using hockey boots and modern materials so they could train for hockey off the ice.  They would go on to form the company Rollerblade, Inc.

Our August 12th event saw us rolling along on our South Street Seaport route. We decided on this route since the forecast was once again uncertain — some New York weathermen called for heavy rain, some said it wouldn’t rain at all. None of them seemed to really know what would happen.

Our own radar analysis using Weather Underground showed the city encircled by thunderstorms, but these storms were just sitting there, while the city remained clear and dry. We decided to play it safe and keep the route familiar and local.

The Seaport route still remains a crowd favorite, no matter how many times a season we do it. The views of the water are always stunning, the docked yachts stir feelings of both envy and awe, the Staten Island Ferry Terminal’s neon logo blazes like a blue beacon in the night, and the Seaport itself is an unusually tranquil nighttime haven once we reach it.

As always, we skated through Chinatown and Little Italy on the way home, cheered along by pedestrians and restaurant patrons who took a momentary break from their pasta dinners to show the Wednesday Night Skate some love.

Check out the photos by clicking on the picture below.

Our skate on August 5th was once again threatened by rain. Thunderstorms moved in during the afternoon, darkening the skies and wetting the ground in certain parts of the city. Luckily, these pockets of atmospheric instability completely moved out of the area by 5pm, and there was no longer any doubt: the Wednesday Night Skate would be rolling that night. Around 50 skaters showed up.

We did a route that took us up Madison Avenue, which we haven’t skated on in quite some time. Parts of it were under construction, so our skillful skaters got an impromptu chance to weave through lines of large construction cones as we headed north. Con Edison workers paused to gawk at the large crowd of crazy skaters whizzing by. In addition to the construction, the pavement was choppy in parts as Madison has not been re-paved in quite some time, but it was nothing that an experienced city skater couldn’t handle.

We turned off of Madison Avenue at 72nd street, and headed towards Central Park. Because parts of the Park are also under construction, we didn’t go in this time. Instead we sailed down 5th avenue, stopping for a break across from the iconic 5th Avenue Apple Store. From there, we skated across 59th street, until we eventually reached 9th avenue. From 9th avenue we skated all the way down to Bleecker street, and took a quick tour of the area before heading home to Union Square.

It was another great night for WNS, made even better that for a time things looked grim weatherwise, but in the end it all worked out our in favor.

The Wednesday Night Skate is known for primarily being an event that allows skaters the unique opportunity to safely skate alongside traffic on the streets of New York City. Skating in traffic in this town could be considered a daunting and dangerous task to do alone, but with a group as large as the crowds seen on WNS, it becomes a much safer and fun activity. While WNS will occasionally hit parks and pathways as part of its weekly routes, it is mainly an “in the streets” event.

But what if you’d like to skate alone or with a small group of friends, away from traffic, on (generally) smooth pathways, without the hassles of watching for potholes, grates, opening taxi doors, and stopping for red lights? Listed below are some of the best areas in the city for doing just that.

Long-time New York City skaters will likely know all about these places, but if you’re new in town or visiting and would like to go to places where you can skate freely on your own with minimal hassle, then keeping reading.

The Westside Path

The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is essentially an extremely long (32 mile) bike path that encircles Manhattan. Many skaters prefer skating up and down the Westside portion of the path, since it is flat, smooth, offers nice views of the water, and goes past several notable places including Chelsea Piers and the floating Intrepid Museum.

Skaters will have to watch out for pedestrians, joggers, and cyclists, particularly on summer weekends featuring nice weather. Evenings and nights during the work week may give you more room to maneuver and skate as fast as you want to without running into anyone.

A map of the entire route is located here.

Riverside Park

If you’d like to stick to an out-the-way area and enjoy a beautiful, albeit smaller, setting while you skate, give Riverside Park a try. With many recently repaved (read: smooth) areas, it’s a nice park to leisurely skate around in during the daytime. Try entering the park at either the 72nd street entrance or the 91st street entrance, and skating in between those areas for the best experience. There are some steep hills to contend with, so look out for them, as well as the many dogwalkers that tend to frequent the park.

Central Park Loop

Central Park is a favorite among most skaters, and where you’ll find all levels of ability, from beginners nervously strapping on their first pair of Rollerblades to experienced speed-skaters conditioning themselves for races and skate marathons. You’ll find most inline skaters (along with everyone else) on the loop, which is a large path that takes you through a large portion of the park. The full loop within Central Park is 6.1 miles long, but there are a few shortcuts if you don’t feel like skating around the whole thing.

Be aware that not only will you be sharing the loop with runners, joggers, cyclists, skateboarders, horse carriages, horse droppings and even pedestrians crossing at crosswalks, but that sometimes traffic is allowed onto the loop, depending on the time of day. And it’s not light traffic, either, but real-deal New York City traffic which will force you to use a slim bike line on the left-hand side of the loop.

Because of this the best time to skate is probably when the park is closed to traffic. The traffic-free hours are as follows: 10am to 3pm and 7pm to 10pm, Monday through Friday, and all day on Saturday and Sunday. Remember, of course, that on a nice weekend day the loop will be jam-packed with what sometimes seems like everyone in the entire city.

Prospect Park Loop

For those of you stuck in visiting or staying in Brooklyn, you can always hit Prospect Park and skate on the loop there. According to the official Prospect Park website, the full loop is 3.5 miles long. Check out their Safety and Rules page for the latest information on when the park is closed to traffic and the rules you need to obey while on the loop. The page even includes a few tips and special rules just for inline skaters.

Many people write in to WNS asking for information about renting skates. Usually they are inline skaters from Europe who are taking a short vacation in NYC and want to include skating with WNS as part of their itinerary. For them, it makes little sense to lug a heavy pair of skates along with their luggage just to skate for two hours.

There used to be a few places to rent skates, but given the decline in inline skating, I wasn’t aware of any place until I learned that our old friend, the skate shop Blades, rents skates.

The caveat is that only their uptown location rents skates. I confirmed this recently with a Blades employee. This means that any travelers wishing to rent skates and join us on the Wednesday Night Skate must go to their location on 156 West 72nd street and rent them there.