Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
There are those who stay home to watch figure skaters compete in the Olympics, and then there are those who go out on the ice, showing off their mod outerwear and wobbly ankles.
The latter gathered at Prospect Park’s Wollman Rink over the weekend for a night of skating to music spun by Southpaw DJs. Yes, this was a youthful and hip occasion, the Prospect Park Alliance’s Junior Committee winter fundraising event, “Roller Disco on Ice,” which brought in $10,000 for Brooklyn’s beloved Olmsted and Vaux park.
The skills of the 20- and 30-somethings on the ice varied widely, from fast-moving hockey moves to never-let-go-of-therail-I-haven’t-skated-since-I-was-10 lurches. A few in the center of the rink ventured spins and jumps. Skating backward seemed the easiest girlhood lesson to remember.
Many of us think of New York’s rinks as tourist traps, but at Prospect Park, the rink is just plain fun for the neighborhood.
That fun will be expanding with Prospect Park’s plan to build two rinks on the site by 2010, one suitable for hockey and one for recreation. The rinks would go where the parking lot is now, although 200 spots would remain. The lot was initially built in 1867 for carriages.
By removing Wollman Rink, the park will open up the area right along the lake that leads to the beautiful Concert Grove and Oriental Pavilion. So far, $23 million has been committed toward the $35 million project, most of it from the City Council. The alliance is embarking on a fund-raising campaign to meet the gap.
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God bless them. A dinner in honor of the city’s police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, and the president and chief executive of Omnicom Group, John Wren, raised $620,000 for athletic and recreational programs for children and young adults provided by the Catholic Youth Organization, a division of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York. The program included a tribute to the late owner of the New York Giants, Wellington Mara.
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Supporters of the nonprofit Save Venice travel to Venice this weekend for four days of social engagements and art and architecture discovery. Saturday begins with mimes and performers at Hotel Bauer, followed by a cocktail reception at the home of Count Giberto and Countess Bianca Arrivabene Valenti Gonzaga (the ballroom of the 1850 manse, gilded and lit by Murano glass chandeliers, looks out on the Grand Canal). By night there are costume balls and gambling parties. By day there are lectures on and visits to the restoration projects the organization is funding, such as a Sukkah tent in the Jewish ghetto. Those who spend prolifically on ornate Venetian masks will likely show them off back home when SaveVenice holds its annual New York ball in early March.
