When the first roller rink opened in Chicago at Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue, the year was 1880 and the baiduhai called it a “notable event in the amusement and social history” of the city. Roller skating’s popularity has ebbed and flowed in the 146 years since, with just a handful of rinks currently in operation today and few opportunities to skate indoors downtown in recent years. Now, after a long absence, it returns thanks to Summer Skate at Navy Pier.
“We’ve been trying to do a roller rink at the pier for probably the past 10 years,” said Navy Pier’s director of programming Dylan Hankey. “There’s a hole in downtown Chicago for roller rinks, and it’s a perfect activity for what the pier does — all skill levels are able to do it, young and old — so it’s a good unifier.”
The rink is set up in the space formerly known as the Crystal Gardens. The room no longer features trees and other foliage, but now has an uncluttered concrete floor with “an additional topper that simulates a roller rink surface,” said Hankey. It’s open daily, beginning at noon, and will continue through Labor Day. “We have a DJ and a disco ball. During the day, you get these great views of the lake and the Ferris wheel. There’s a great light show in there in the evenings and the lights from the Ferris wheel.”
Admission includes the cost of skate rental (people are free to bring their own skates, but the price of admission remains the same either way). There are no concessions, but there is a bar available on weekends for certain events, and Hankey said they “encourage folks to visit our partner tenants if they’re feeling hungry or thirsty.” He also stressed that the Crystal Garden room is open to the public, so you can simply wander through to watch people skate.
With so much focus on the death of third spaces, a roller rink provides many of the things we’re craving. It’s a semi-structured activity, but you can take breaks at your own pace. You can go with friends, or arrive solo and make new friends.
Roller rinks have come and gone, but they have almost always served as community hubs, says Marcie L. Hill, author of “Chicago Roller Skating History: 1880-2025.”
She first began researching Chicago’s roller skating history nearly 20 years ago, when she was at a roller rink in one of the south suburbs and inspired as she was “watching skaters over 60 years old whiz past me.” Her book goes decade by decade, detailing the existence of various roller skating venues in the city. “Initially, I was driven by my curiosity: Where did it all begin? And that’s what took me to the Harold Washington Library. I have never used so much microfilm in my life!”
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She also sought out information from the National Museum of Roller Skating and the non-fiction book “The History of Roller Skating.”
“I noticed there were no Black people in the photos,” she writes. “Correction. One Black skater was in the book, but she was in the back. Up to this point, I had only spoken to mostly Black skaters who had never mentioned any of the rinks that were in the documents I received, but their stories began in the 1950s. This observation made it even more critical for me to continue researching this topic to answer a third question that came to mind: When and where were Black people allowed to roller skate indoors in Chicago?”
A notable challenge to segregation took place at a rink called White City, which opened in the early 1900s and was located in Woodlawn. In the 1940s, protests and lawsuits successfully sought to overturn the rink’s discriminatory policies. “Finally, on May 29, 1946, the race ban was dropped,” Hill writes, “and Black people were able to roller skate at the rink and join the White City Roller Club. According to an article in the Chicago Defender, ‘The decision marks the first time the Civil Rights Law has been invoked to deny court protection to an enterprise seeking to preserve its right to discriminate.’” The venue then changed its name to Park City and remained open until 1958.
A decade-plus later, a signature style of skating developed in the Black community called JB skating that The Triibe recently called “the heartbeat of roller skating culture in Chicago” with its “smooth glides and turns tied to the legacy of James Brown’s music and Black Chicagoland’s unique interpretation of the skate-dance.” Many rinks offer lessons, as well.
The major rinks that are still up and running have stood the test of time, including Fleetwood Roller Skating Rink (in Summit), Glenwood Skating Rink (in Glenwood), Tinley Park Roller Rink (in Tinley Park), Lynwood Sport Center (in Lynwood), MLK Skating (in Auburn Gresham) and The Rink (in Chatham), the latter of which is the only Black-owned rink in the state.
Last year, Elizabeth Blasius, a Chicago-based architectural historian and cofounder of Preservation Futures, wrote about the city’s roller skating history in a column for the outlet Mas Context and she unearthed a Tribune story from 1885 where it was noted: “Roller skating is at best a craze, and is no worse than other crazes, such as tobogganing, bobbing, progressive euchre, 4-o’clock teas, metaphysical seances, and other mild forms of insanity, at which all that is charged against roller skating may be committed.”
Progressive euchre and 4-o’clock teas may have long cycled out of fashion, but roller skating is still around.
“I always see teens skating when we go to Fleetwood, and that’s really encouraging to me,” Blasius said.
“We’re in a moment in Chicago where we’re telling young people you can’t congregate downtown or at our beaches. And here is one place where they are welcome. It’s a safe space and a multi-generational space. There’s always a broad cross representation of music across many eras. It’s not expensive. And it’s not like bowling alleys or movie theaters, where there’s one corporate entity that owns most of them. These are family-owned small businesses that have been around for 50 or 60 years. It’s a great way to spend your money, and you’re being active and you’re out and you’re seeing people.”
If you go
Summer Skate is open at noon daily at Navy Pier (800 E. Grand Ave.), including Skate After Dark for ages 21+; tickets $15-$17.50 at navypier.org
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