By Russ Tarby
Contributing Writer
There’s no other word for it. Mark Falso is obsessed.
The object of his obsession? The venerable entertainment institution known as roller-skating rinks.
Over the past two years, Falso has catalogued nearly 2,000 former rinks – and a few current rinks – on his website, dead-rinks.weebly.com. Illustrated with historic photos and advertisements, Dead-Rinks combines nostalgia, popular culture and architecture to vividly recall various eras, all while merrily rolling along a hardwood floor.
Do you remember these local roller-rinks?
Action Sports and Skate, 2601 Brewerton Road, Mattydale (previously known as Sports-O-Rama Roller Rink).
Alhambra Roller Rink, 275 James St. at Pearl Street, downtown Syracuse.
Beehive Skate, Center River Mall, Baldwinsville (replaced original Empire Skates West).
Central Square Roller Rink, Route 49, Central Square.
Criterion Roller Rink, James and McBride streets, Syracuse.
Dance-N-Skate, 2601 Brewerton Road, Mattydale (replaced Sports-O-Rama).
Empire Roller Rink, Dickerson Street, Foot of Clinton.
Empire Skates East, Empire Plaza, Erie Boulevard East, DeWitt.
Empire Skates West River Mall, Baldwinsville.
Keppler’s, South Bay Road at Lakeshore Road, Cicero.
Floss’s Roller Rink, 6957 West Dead Creek Road, Memphis.
Maxi’s Roller Rink Camillus Plaza, West Genesee Street, Camillus.
North Syracuse Rollerdrome, 750 South Bay Road, North Syracuse.
North Syracuse Skateland, South Bay Road, North Syracuse.
Palace Roller Rink, Syracuse.
Paul’s Roller Rink, South Salina Street, Syracuse.
Rainbow Skating Rink, South Bay Road, North Syracuse.
Skate-N-Place Roller Rink, Westvale Plaza, West Genesee Street, Westvale.
Sports-O-Rama, 2601 Brewerton Road, Mattydale (later Dance-N-Skate, Action Sports and Skate)
Suburban Park Roller Rink, Suburban Park, Route 92, Manlius.
Sweetheart Skating, Sweetheart Corner, Route 11, North Syracuse.
Terry’s (or Therre’s) Roller Rink, South Bay Road at Lakeshore Road, Cicero.
Radisson Roller Rink, Baldwinsville.
(Source: dead-rinks.weebly.com).
Falso, a 55-year-old Galeville resident who happens to be Deaf, cherishes memories of skating at Empire Skates East across from the DeWitt Drive-In theaters.
“As a teenager, I skated there almost every Friday and Saturday night,” he wrote in an email. “And I skated at every rink that was operational in Central NY from the late 1970s to 2000s. Places like Sports-O-Rama where I worked for a year and created some murals there. I also went to Floss’s, Skate-n-Place and Reva Rollerdrome in Auburn among others.”
An amateur historian, Falso applies his background in genealogy, art, architecture and design along with his skating experience to knowledgeably add new profiles of former rinks to the website every day.
“Since I love history, it’s rewarding to learn about something old which is new to me,” he wrote.
Dead-Rinks is clearly a labor of love. He tirelessly lists former rinks accompanied by geographical details and photos. Attracting an estimated 900 views weekly, the website apparently pleases skaters who remember old arenas such as Sports-O-Rama, Empire Skates East and West locally.
But the Falso profiles hundreds of arenas from all across America and around the world.
Rinks such as Empire Disco in Brooklyn where Roller Disco was born. The Rink from 1880s New Orleans is now a shopping plaza with the building intact, and apartments now stand where the National Arena once stood in Washington, D.C.
Falso recalls skating at Floss’s in the hamlet of Memphis in the town of Van Buren, and his site runs a color photo of the now-broken-down building on a humble stretch of farmland.
The black-and-white photo of Mattydale’s Sports-O-Rama was shot in the middle of a 1970s’ winter, with snowdrifts filling the parking lot in front of the Bit’O West tavern.
“Yes, it’s a huge project,” Falso admits. “The most difficult thing is finding information on much older rinks that closed before 1990. The older it is, the harder it is.”
Occasionally he unearths an archived newspaper article about roller skating, which can be helpful.
For more recent rinks, Falso can access real estate and business information online, but such databases never existed for historic rinks.
A hint of sadness overshadows the Dead-Rinks project.
“The list continues to grow daily and always will because rinks are closing due to people using cell phones, home-based video games, streaming, social networking online, drones and other activities being created anew,” Falso notes.
