Article Response: Roller Rinks

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First-time contributor Stripey on roller rinks and the people/music you find there.

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 14:19 (twenty-three years ago)

what a great article!

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't it though? It gave me a warm feeling inside!

― Tom (Groke), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 15:59 (twenty-three years ago)

social anthropology at its best. it made me want to go skating, too.

― michael wells (michael w.), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 16:04 (twenty-three years ago)

sadly it made me want to go back to my hometown rollerrink at xmas time, but you couldn't pay me, since last i heard someone was shot outside it.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 16:07 (twenty-three years ago)

A wunnerful piece, as the author well knows. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 16:52 (twenty-three years ago)

That was unnecessarily cryptic, Ned.

Yeah great article but could have been about life on Venus for all I know.

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 30 October 2002 17:24 (twenty-three years ago)

I enjoyed this piece -- I actually had no idea that rinks were still open & I wonder where this is. Brought back many good memories (in 1979 I was ten and skating like a motherfucker.) Nice work, Stripey, whoever you are.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 17:24 (twenty-three years ago)

Do I know Stripey?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 17:25 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe this is anthony's long-awaited piece! ;-)

― Jeff W, Wednesday, 30 October 2002 17:34 (twenty-three years ago)

That was unnecessarily cryptic, Ned.

Stripey is a very good friend of mine, that's all -- has posted a few times on the boards here, but isn't a regular. Read an earlier version of this a couple of weeks ago and immediately referred it to Tom as something that should be published on FT. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 17:34 (twenty-three years ago)

nice article.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 17:52 (twenty-three years ago)

http://www.whirlybird.org.uk/roller-disco.jpg

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 22:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks for the kind words.
I'm glad you enjoyed my article, spelling errors and all. :)

Thanks to Tom for printing it, and to Ned for suggesting it.

Until two months ago, I didn't know there was a roller rink nearby either! A combination of fate and luck brought me to it -- in the form of a friend who'd known that I'd skated before.

If you'd like to see where the nearest rink is, there's a list online (not sure if it's international). The list even includes rinks that haven't been built. Is that optimism or what?

http://www.netaxs.com/people/grr/roller/

― stripey, Wednesday, 30 October 2002 22:36 (twenty-three years ago)

What a marvellous piece. Thankyou Stripey, for brightening up my day and transporting me to a place of which I was previously only dimly aware.

Makes me want to write about...stuff.

― Charlie (Charlie), Wednesday, 30 October 2002 23:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Do it then, Charlie. :)

Just look around you -- there's a lot of stuff to choose from (and most of it is interesting, if you look at it closely. Even the stuff that seems kinda boring at first. Sometimes it's the most interesting of all).

― stripey, Thursday, 31 October 2002 00:53 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

Wow... It's like I'm back in a rink again! Oh the memories....

― Jen_B (Jen_b), Wednesday, 18 December 2002 09:30 (twenty-three years ago)

three months pass...

BRILLIANT!

― Cozen (Cozen), Friday, 28 March 2003 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

This article inspired the FAP some of us NYCilXors had at the Empire Roller Disco in Brooklyn a few months back. Good times!

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 28 March 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I still love to go skating - it's so much better than getting drunk in a smoky bar. I shouldn't talk about it because I think it's going to get hot again very soon, and then there won't be enough room at the rink. Where I go, it's mostly black adults skating to hip-hop or r+b - some of them are really fantastic, leapfrogging and stuff. It goes on all night, too. It's come a long way from the disco days.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 28 March 2003 16:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sorry I never commented on how great this article was before. I grew up going skating all the time and this piece rang very true to me -- it brought back a lot of memories.

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 28 March 2003 18:01 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

Bumping this one up again due to Dan Gibson's Idolator post today. And the original article linked up top is still pretty damn great.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 30 July 2007 16:23 (eighteen years ago)

Man, good old Empire. What a place.

Roller Discos - Classic Or Dud?

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 30 July 2007 18:54 (eighteen years ago)

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