Growing Up, Style Skating in D.C.
D.C. was once home to a thriving, style rollerskating culture, “born at segregation-era skate nights in black communities throughout the country in the 1950s and 1960s,” Washington City Paper reported in 2011.
D.C.’s rinks closed in the 1980s, and skaters are still around, but they have to leave the District to skate. They go to places like Temple Hills Skate Center in Prince George’s County. In this video below, local journalist Lauren Schneiderman profiles the skate center and one employee in particular, 60-year-old Gerald Chase. Here, he talks about growing up in 1960s D.C. and frequenting the now-closed National Arena Roller Rink on Kalorama Road NW:
“We all got together every Sunday, and we went up to Kalorama Road from 2 to 5, and my mother told me, ‘If you want to go skating, you have to go to church.’” he recalls. “I didn’t miss church for three years.”
- Source: Vimeo
