St. Nicholas Ice-Skating Rink
Defunct
In November they moved into Anthony’s apartment, from which they sallied triumphantly to the Yale-Harvard and Harvard-Princeton football games, to the St. Nicholas Ice-Skating Rink, to a thorough round of the theatres and to a miscellany of entertainments—from small, staid dances to the great affairs that Gloria loved, held in those few houses where lackeys with powdered wigs scurried around in magnificent Anglomania under the direction of gigantic majordomos. Their intention was to go abroad the first of the year or, at any rate, when the war was over.
The Beautiful and Damned
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Opened on 7 November 1896, it was promoted by several backers, including Cornelius Vanderbilt and John Jacob Astor, and designed by the architects Flagg and Chambers. It began as an indoor skating and ice-sports rink, with a mechanically produced “artificial ice” surface—an important technical novelty at the time—supported by an ice-manufacturing installation in the basement. Until 1906 it was devoted exclusively to ice sports, but that year it added boxing and, after professional bouts were legalized in 1911, it became a very popular venue for fight nights. In 1920, boxing use made the rink unnecessary and the ice was removed. The building continued operating as a boxing venue until 1962. Later it was used as a television production centre for ABC and WABC-TV and, finally, it was demolished.
