The New York City Inline Skating Guide
Where to Skate: Central Park

• Introduction
• Skate Patrol Stopping Clinic
• The Loop
• Slalom Course and Speedskaters Curb
• Skater's Road
• Bandshell
• Cherry Hill
• More Info

Introduction

The most popular outdoor skating location in NYC is Manhattan's Central Park, with its 9.7-km (approx. 6-mile) loop. Cars are barred from the loop from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM and from 7:00 to 10:00 PM on weekdays from January 1 through Thanksgiving, and around the clock on weekends and holidays all year. Cars do mistakenly (and not so mistakenly) enter the loop road when it's closed, and ambulances, police cars, and park vehicles may appear at any time, so always keep your eyes and ears open.

Happily for skaters, the Central Park loop was almost entirely resurfaced in the early 1990s, and has generally remained in very good condtition since then. The primary exceptions are some stretches on the heavily-trafficked lower loop, particularly in the southeast of the park where horse carriage traffic has pounded a gully in the center of one lane.

Always remember to skate counter-clockwise when you're on the loop;

Mixed traffic on the loop

many serious accidents in the park have been caused by people skating or cycling the wrong direction. If you're not sure what direction is counter-clockwise, just look for the big white arrows marked in the middle of the road every few hundred yards.

Also, you'll be sharing the road with bikers, joggers, pedestrians, and horse-drawn carriages. On weekdays, there's usually plenty of room for all during the car-free hours, but when cars are allowed in, the recreation-use-only lane can get very crowded. You may want to consider not skating the loop when cars are in the park, what with the competition for the recreation lane and the exhaust and grit in the air. On weekends, the loop usually gets pretty crowded during mid-afternoons between about Easter and October; if you want to do any serious looping, it's best to do it before 1:00 PM or after 5:00 PM.

When skating after dark, it would be wise to wear a light to alert fast moving cyclists to your presence. And on weekday evenings and early weekend mornings, watch out for bicycle packs; they're quiet and very fast.

On Sunday, August 11, 1996, a skater was struck by a bicyclist on the upper east side of the Central Park loop, and she died a couple days later from head injuries. (This was the third skater death in Central Park in fifteen months, all from head injuries.) From the article in The New York Times, it is apparent that this particular accident happened because the skater and a friend were goofing around and she blundered into the cyclist's path. So keep your head screwed on when you're skating on the loop, even when cars aren't in the park. Go somewhere like the Bandshell, Skaters' Road, or Cherry Hill, if you feel the need to play around on your skates.

It turns out that for some time, the Parks Dept. had been thinking about putting some of its rangers on wheels in order to promote safe skating, cycling and jogging in the park. True to bureaucratic form, the idea had been rapidly going nowhere due to lack of funding but was then quickly put into place following this death. Thus, during the last month or so of the 1996 skating season, members of the Parks Enforcement Patrol (aka "PEP boys" or "skate rangers") circulated the loop on skates. They generally stopped skaters and cyclists and delivered one or more of three basic safety messages:

1. Skate/cycle counter-clockwise. If you don't know what direction that is, the giant white arrows marked on the road should offer a hint.
2. When cars are not in the park, the recreation lane is reserved for the use of joggers. Skaters and cyclists must instead use one of the two regular traffic lanes.
3. New York state law requires that skaters under age 14 wear a helmet.

Unfortunately, the skate rangers were not very visible in 1997 or 1998, assuming they were deployed in the park at all. But the Parks Dept. did come up with enough money to put the skate rangers back out on the loop during the summer of 1999, and this time they supposedly were writing summonses for reckless skate behavior.

So, again, keep an eye for people going the wrong way. And if you yourself for some reason need to travel the wrong direction on the loop, do the rest of us a favor by getting over to the side of the road and going slow.

Skate Patrol Stopping Clinic

At both 72nd St. entrances to Central Park, on weekend afternoons from 12:30 until 5:30 during the prime skate season -- mid-April to mid-October -- the Central Park Skate Patrol gives beginning inline skaters some much-needed and free instruction on how to stop. Just look for a "bike rack" barricade that has a Skate Patrol banner hanging on it . The patrol members themselves wear red shirts with white crosses on the back (like a Swiss flag or an inverse Red Cross) and, of course, helmets. Members of the patrol may also be circulating around the loop to watch out for anybody who might be injured and in need of a Band-Aid or an ambulance.

The Loop

The Lower Loop
Starting at Columbus Circle (59th St. and Broadway) , the southwest corner of the park, the lower loop (or small loop) travels eastward and northward around the Heckscher playground (note: skating is not permitted on the playground), then leading you past Wollman Rink on the right and the Friedsam Carousel on the left. A ways after passing the entrance to the Mall , a tree-lined walkway leading to the Bandshell, you'll come to Olmsted Way, the 72nd St. crossover. Bear left onto the crossover. After climbing uphill, you'll see the Bandshell to your left and the Bethesda Terrace on your right. Next on the left is the north end of Skater's Road, then Cherry Hill on the right. After this, you'll arrive at the intersection with the west side of the loop, where you again bear left. You'll pass between Tavern on the Green and the Sheep Meadow on the way back to Columbus Circle.

The lower loop is a fairly tame collection of mild rolling hills. The asphalt is in so-so condition between the West 72nd and Sixth Ave. entrances. And even though it was resurfaced from Sixth Ave. up to East 72nd St. within recent memory, the rightmost lane has seriously degraded from use by horse-drawn carriages. You certainly should watch out for the ubiquitous evidence of the horses in the right-most lane, particularly in the stretch near Wollman Rink; in fact, it's said that the skater who died in the park in the summer of 1995 fell because he had slipped on some horseshit. This area of the park is also about the most crowded with skaters and pedestrians, so be careful.

The Big Loop
To do a complete, or big, loop, start off as you would have a lower loop, but when you get to East 72nd St., keep going straight so that you pass by the boathouse. Here you'll be ascending Cedar Hill, a fairly stiff

Cleopatra's Needle

slope frequently called Cat Hill due to the statue which you may spot if you're observant. Watch out for skaters and cyclists going the wrong way on the hill. After a slight dip, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will then come up on your right, with Cleopatra's Needle and the Great Lawn uphill on the left.

The next landmark to the north is the Reservoir ("Lake Jackie"), marked by the embankment on the left side of the long straightaway in the road. Beyond the Reservoir is the North Meadow (a collection of baseball fields), and then the Lasker Hill downslope, which passes by Lasker Pool; be prepared for the hairpin turn at the bottom of the hill. Here you're at the lowest point on the loop at approximately 30 feet above sea level. Flattening out for a bit, the road passes by Harlem Meer and then turns west.

The loop now begins to climb steadily and as you turn south gets even steeper. This is the Great Hill, known by joggers as Cardiac Hill for obvious reasons. After ascending the Great Hill and zooming down the other side, you'll wind gradually south, passing over three moderate hills. Be cautious after the third hill (the highest point in the park), because it's easy to pick up a lot of speed as you begin the descent around 82nd St. and pass by the Delacorte Theater and Belvedere Castle. This is prime pedestrian territory due to the park paths connecting the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the American Museum of Natural History. At times in the past, the park police were occasionally known to set up partial barricades in the road to slow skaters and bikers down. Next is the flats alongside the Lake, and after going by Strawberry Fields, you'll arrive at the western intersection with Olmsted Way and the lower loop.

The big loop is a good workout which takes even professional speedskaters 16 to 18 minutes to complete. If you can do it in four-wheel skates in under 30 minutes, you're probably in pretty good shape; under 25 minutes, you should consider going into training for racing.

102nd St. Cutoff
There is also what is occasionally called the "cutoff loop", which is pretty much the same as the big loop except that you avoid Lasker Hill and the Great Hill by taking the 102nd St. cutoff, a service road which lies just north of the North Meadow. I have yet to hear of an official name for this road. Some people call it the 103rd or 104th St. crossover because its eastern and western ends aren't straight across from each other. Whatever.

If you're skating the loop after dark, you certainly should take advantage of this cutoff instead of going down Lasker Hill and over the Great Hill. The area north of 102nd St. is pretty secluded, and although Central Park is safer than it was a decade or two ago, incidents still happen, including the murder of a female jogger at the bottom of Lasker Hill around sunrise on a Sunday in September 1995. There is usually a police three-wheeler parked at one end or the other of the service road, but it's not always there.

Finally, speedskaters into serious hill training will do circuits of the "upper loop". Basically, this means that they do the Lasker downslope, climb the Great Hill and zoom down, and then take the cutoff back to the east side and do it all again.

Loop Distances
According to the New York Road Runners Club map of Central Park, distances on the loop are:

Slalom Course and Speedskaters Curb

On the west side of the loop at 67th St., between Tavern on the Green and the Sheep Meadow, is the slalom course. Virtually any weekend or holiday in which there is no rain, snow or foot/skate/bike race, a line of 30 orange cones is set up in the recreation lane, from early afternoon until sundown. The cones also make an appearance on many summer weekday evenings.

Slalom course

There's usually a bunch of inliners and one or two quadders waiting to skate the course, plus a gaggle of tourists/skaters/bikers watching. (Thus, if you're trying to skate or bike laps, this is also the locus of one of the biggest traffic jams on the loop.) Despite what the New York Times has said, it's not mostly a bunch of skaters in "grunge clothes". Not that the slalom skaters really care, since it's a pretty diverse group with representatives from both the wallet-chain and the spandex crowds.

The tenor of the slalom course changed much during 1996, and it has perhaps since then been a lbit ess friendly place than it was before. The "problem" is that many of the skaters now frequently found there prefer to do high-speed slalom runs, and so the scene can be intimidating to someone who's never done the cones but would like to give it a try. If you fall into that category, you may find that the course is much easier to deal with in the early afternoon (before 2:00) and early evening (after 5:00 or so). Also, another slalom area somewhat more friendly to beginning skaters can often be found over by the Bandshell.

Just a few feet north of the slalom course is a section of the loop overhung by shade trees where many five-wheelers (and cyclists) can be found sitting on "The Curb", taking rest breaks between laps around the park. Stop here on weekends or weekday evenings from March through October if you'd like to meet people to train with or to catch up on the latest speedskating gossip.

Skater's Road

Skate Circle dancing

Also known unofficially as the Dead Road and officially as Center Drive, this is a road running alongside the eastern edge of the Sheep Meadow, from the carousel to Olmsted Way. Many years ago it was blocked off from auto traffic and now hosts some volleyball courts and a large skating area. Paths lead from the middle of the road west along the north edge of the Sheep Meadow to the slalom area on the loop and east to the Bandshell.

The northern half of Skater's Road is where the skating action can be found, an area which you may also hear called the Skate Circle. This is the place for dance skaters to meet, as literally hundreds of inline and quad skaters can be found roller dancing here on summer weekends, along with even more spectators. The Skate Circle forms every Saturday, Sunday and holiday from 2:00 to 7:00 PM from mid-April through late October, and is free to all. The sound system is provided by the the Central Park Dance Skaters Association, which also organizes or helps organize several special skating events in the area during the year, including the Parks Dept.'s Halloween-time SkateFright.

Besides the dance skaters, there are usually other skate activities happening on Skater's Road, especially on weekend mornings and weekday evenings. Small inline classes are usually to be found on weekend mornings during the skating season, and private lessons may happen at any daylight hour throughout the week. There are often cones set up near the north end of the road for slalom skating on weekday evenings, or when other activities block the usual slalom site. The occasional ball gets batted around by some one-on-one rollerhockey players. And etc.

The Bandshell

Bandshell

Just east and slightly uphill of the Skate Circle area is the Bandshell With a flatter and smoother surface than that of Skater's Road, it's a bit more like an ice skating rink, with some people skating in circles, some practicing inline figure skating maneuvers, etc. A bunch of slalom cones can often be found on one of the nearby walkways. This area can be very crowded on weekend afternoons and during early evenings throughout the summer, but it is fairly quiet on weekday afternoons. At any time, it can be a fun place for trying new maneuvers or just hanging out.

Although there were pick-up rollerhockey games at the Bandshell many years ago, park police now usually clamp down on this activity due to conflict with other activities. Now, rollerhockey is apparently banned throughout the park except at Wollman Rink. Likewise, there used to be regular grinding and impromptu ramp skating in front of or near the Bandshell, but those too have been declared verboten. However, enforcement is inconsistent (rules seem to be most rigidly enforced during spring and early summer), and you will still see the occasional teen-ager grinding on one of the benches.

Just north of the bandshell are the Bethesda steps , three flights of stairs which lead down to the Bethesda Fountain. The stairway which passes under Olmsted Way and the Bethesda Terrace occasionally sees some radical stairbashing by aggressive skaters.

Cherry Hill

Cherry Hill

Across Olmsted Way from the north end of Skater's Road is a small, flat paved circle that hardly ever has any people around, even on weekends when the rest of the park is pretty crowded. This is a good place to practice new skating maneuvers, especially for newbies, but the asphalt is a little rough. It also offers a very nice view of the Lake and there's a water fountain, so it makes a good place for an extended rest stop.

More Info

Visit the Central Park Conservancy or the Central Park Skate Patrol for more info about the park.