The last lap at Lloyd Center: how America is losing its mall ice rinks

The Portland rink where Tonya Harding first skated was an affordable community institution for six decades. Its closure echoes the disappearance of mall ice across the US

When the Lloyd Center shopping mall first opened its doors in 1960, it boasted a unique feature: an ice rink. In the nearly seven decades since, that ice rink – first outdoor, then enclosed by a glass ceiling that sheltered mall-goers from the elements – became a cultural epicenter for Portlanders.

Children accompanying parents on errands spotted peers gliding across the ice and begged for lessons. Shoppers, taking a break from the stores, watched idly from the three levels that looked out over the ice. At Christmas, a giant tree adorned the middle of the rink, making Lloyd Center an essential part of the holiday season.

Deemed important enough for a stop on Bobby Kennedy’s campaign trail in 1968, famed as the site of Tonya Harding’s first steps on ice in 1973, the rink provided generations with a fun, easy and affordable space to skate. Even as malls have declined in America, attendance at the Lloyd Center rink endured, supporting a Learn To Skate USA program with one of the highest enrollment rates in the nation.

But last Saturday that all came to an end, when skaters laced up at Lloyd Center for the last time, and the mall, along with its rink, was finally shuttered.

Lloyd Center’s demise is not isolated. For decades, ice rinks served as both spectacle and public amenity at shopping malls across the US, placing a sport often associated with private clubs directly in the path of ordinary families. But as aging malls have closed or been redeveloped, many of those rinks have disappeared, eliminating some of the most visible and accessible entry points to skating.

“The environment is pretty special,” said Wendy May, 69, the day before the closure. “Because people on the upper levels are watching, a regular skater can feel like they’re performing. And there’s a lot of public skaters, so a lot of people are taking their first strokes and glides on this ice. There are birthday parties, and it’s a community center in a big way.”

That feeling of community extended beyond the rink boards. Coaches and skating moms described how in recent years Lloyd Center had become a haven for teens and adults to socialize, with chess and bridge clubs, mall walkers, Zine meet-ups and residents seeking respite from smoky summers filling the space despite the emptying store fronts.

“I watch high school and college students use that third floor for study groups,” said Lloyd Center coach and Pacific Ice Academy co-director Alec Schmitt. “I watch on the first floor on Saturdays, while I’m teaching classes, groups of trading card swaps and collector swaps.”

The rink, which was never a standard competitive size, was further reduced during a 2016 renovation to a perfect oval shape, so young skaters who had dreams of competing, often ended up taking lessons at other, full-sized rinks. But still skaters returned to Lloyd Center, where they’d made friends, where the atmosphere was more relaxed, and where many said they felt most at home. Schmitt, who has coached for more than 10 years, said Lloyd Center was “unequivocally, the most inclusive rink I’ve ever been a part of”.

Lydia Finch, now co-director of the Pacific Ice Academy at Lloyd Center, began skating in the mall at four years old, and even after she started training full-time at a bigger rink, still found herself back at Lloyd Center. “Every single week I would still go there Tuesdays and Thursdays and practice in the afternoons after school,” said Finch. When she graduated high school and started college, a position opened up there for teaching Learn To Skate classes, and she described the shift to coaching as a “full-circle moment”.

With the closure of Lloyd Center, Portland has now been left without a rink within the city limits. Part of Lloyd Center’s appeal was its central location near the light rail and bus routes as well as several highways, offering a diverse range of skaters easy access to a sport that has been known for its exclusivity.

That distinction is central to what is being lost nationwide. Purpose-built skating complexes may offer larger and better ice, but many are situated on the suburban fringe, difficult to reach without a car and heavily booked by hockey teams or competitive skating clubs. Mall rinks made skating part of ordinary life: a child could discover the sport while running errands with a parent, and a casual skater could step on to the ice without first joining a team or academy.

That accessibility, along with the efforts of coaching staff to make pricing straightforward and affordable, was working. According to US Figure Skating’s vice-president of membership, Elise Preston, Lloyd Center had the largest Learn To Skate USA program in Oregon with nearly 800 participants last season. The next largest program in Oregon is less than half of the size, with about 300 skaters. Management at the Lloyd Center rink recorded an average of 700 class enrollments per multi-week session.

However, even for those who can commute, it isn’t as simple as shifting to another rink. The three nearest facilities already have full rosters of coaches, compete for ice time with hockey, and in some cases are even unable to add young skaters to their academy programs. Coaches like Finch and Schmitt have been left with the impossible options to move away from family to be near other rinks, or quit the job they love.

Source: Read the original article on www.theguardian.com