Park Stories

Rec Facilities: A Matter Of Circumstance

PRB+ Magazine

What it takes to maintain an ice-skating rink

By Hannah Seo

A beloved and longstanding staple of wintertime recreation, gliding around on knife-strapped boots is an annual must-do activity for families around the world. But while ice skating has been around for an exceptionally long time—scholars think it was developed in Scandinavia around 1000 BCE—manmade ice-skating rinks are a somewhat recent invention, created fewer than 150 years ago.