The Empire Roller Disco was a 30,000-square-foot roller rink located at 200 Empire Blvd., in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. [1]
The birthplace of roller disco, [2] it was the first venue to showcase jammin', a skate style invented by its attendee and employee Bill "Mr. Charisma" Butler. [3] [1]
In 1941, the Swanson family opened the Empire Roller Skating Center in a former garage across the street from Ebbets Field. [4] [5] By the 1940s, the rink (renamed as the Brooklyn Rollerdome) hosted skate and beauty contests in addition to regular skate sessions. [6]
In 1956, Henry and Hector Abrami became the new owners and operators. [7] [8] Empire Rollerdrome's slogan, appearing on a postcard, was "Home of the 'Miracle Maple'". This referred to its special maple wood flooring, which created a smooth surface for roller skaters. [1]
In the 1960s, roller skating choreographer Bill Butler created a new style of roller skating called jammin', involving complex choreography. Skater Gloria McCarthy, whose father owned the rink, started a "Bounce" night to showcase Charisma's new style. [9]
In the 1970s, the rink became the Empire Roller Disco, transitioning from an organ to a sound system operated by a disc jockey designed by audio engineer Richard Long (also the designer of the sound systems for the Warehouse, Paradise Garage, Club Zanzibar). [10]
By 1979, Butler became the rink's instructor, performer, and creative consultant. [11] A photograph shows Butler at a Casablanca Records party at Empire, instructing Cher by leading her by the hand. [1] His "stylish tricks...made the [Empire Roller Disco] a HOT destination", as it "drew storied celebrities away from the snooty uptown clubs (Studio 54) down to the warm & accepting Brooklyn Rink". [3] The most notable celebrity guest was Cher, [3] who hosted Billboard 's Disco Forum skate party at the Empire Roller Disco that year. [12] [13] She also hosted the Billboard Magazine Disco Forum skate party at the Empire Roller Disco. [14]
Gloria Abrami McCarthy operated the rink from 1980-1998. From 1998-2007, United Skates of America operated the rink. [8]
In April 2007, Empire Roller Disco closed permanently. [15] [4]
Roller skater Bill "Mr. Charisma" Butler is credited with introducing and popularizing the roller skating dance styles of jamming known as "roller rocking" and "Brooklyn Bounce" at Empire in the late 1950s to the 1980s. [16] [17] [18] [19]
The City Reliquary praised the rink's cultural impact in a 2023 exhibit:
[In the late '70s and early '80s,] Empire Roller Disco became a cultural epicenter, nurturing skating styles and hosting competitions that launched the careers of many skating legends such as Maurice Gatewood, Roger Green, and Pat the Cat! It also served as a breeding ground for DJ superstars and propelled the rink to unprecedented heights. One of the biggest stars was DJ Big Bob (Robert Clayton), an icon in the Skate Music scene and a renowned skater himself.
Celebrities such as Prince, Grace Jones, Madonna, and Olivia Newton-John have visited Empire to skate. [17] [20]
Skate DJs at Empire popularized roller skating to R&B, disco, and hip hop. Notable skate DJ Big Bob (Robert Clayton) worked at Empire for over 20 years. [21] [17] [10]
Inline skates are boots with wheels arranged in a single line from front to back, allowing a skater to roll along on these wheels. Inline skates are technically a type of roller skate, but most people associate the term roller skates with quad skates, another type of roller skates with a two-by-two wheel arrangement similar to a car. Quad skates were popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while inline skates became prominent in the late 1980s with the rise of Rollerblade, Inc., and peaked in the late 1990s. The registered trademark Rollerblade has since become a generic trademark due to its popularity. To this day, "rollerblades" continues to be used in everyday language to refer to inline skates.
Roller skating is the act of travelling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a recreational activity, a sport, and a form of transportation. Roller rinks and skate parks are built for roller skating, though it also takes place on streets, sidewalks, and bike paths.
Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Ralph Avenue to the east, and Empire Boulevard/East New York Avenue to the south. It is about one mile (1.6 km) wide and two miles (3.2 km) long. Neighborhoods bordering Crown Heights include Prospect Heights to the west, Flatbush and Prospect Lefferts Gardens to the south, Brownsville to the east, and Bedford–Stuyvesant to the north.
The Roxy was a popular nightclub and former disco roller rink located at 515 West 18th Street in New York City.
Roller Boogie is a 1979 American teen musical exploitation film about roller disco, directed by Mark L. Lester and starring Linda Blair, Jim Bray, Beverly Garland, Roger Perry, Mark Goddard, Jimmy Van Patten, and Kimberly Beck. Set in the Venice suburb of Los Angeles at the height of the roller skating fad of the late 1970s, it follows an upper-class young woman (Blair) who falls in love with a working class skater (Bray). The two seek to thwart efforts from a powerful mobster attempting to acquire the land where a popular roller rink is located.
A roller disco is a discothèque or skating rink where all the dancers wear roller skates of some kind. The music played is modern and easily danceable; historically disco but in modern times including almost any form of dance, pop, house, R&B, or rock music. Roller discos often involve the usage of a disco ball.
The Roseland Ballroom was a multipurpose hall, in a converted ice skating rink, with a colorful ballroom dancing pedigree, in New York City's theater district, on West 52nd Street in Manhattan.
Jam skating, also called Jammin', is a skating style consisting of a combination of dance, gymnastics, and roller skating, performed on roller skates.
Brooklyn Bridge Park is an 85-acre (34 ha) park on the Brooklyn side of the East River in New York City. Designed by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, the park is located on a 1.3-mile (2.1 km) plot of land from Atlantic Avenue in the south, under the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and past the Brooklyn Bridge, to Jay Street north of the Manhattan Bridge. From north to south, the park includes the preexisting Empire–Fulton Ferry and Main Street Parks; the historic Fulton Ferry Landing; and Piers 1–6, which contain various playgrounds and residential developments. The park also includes Empire Stores and the Tobacco Warehouse, two 19th-century structures, and is a part of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, a series of parks and bike paths around Brooklyn.
Lasker Rink, dedicated as the Loula D. Lasker Memorial Swimming Pool and Skating Rink was a seasonal ice skating rink and swimming pool at the southwest corner of the Harlem Meer in the northern part of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. Designed by the architects Fordyce & Hamby Associates, it operated from 1966 to 2021. Lasker Rink was demolished after its final season of operation and is to be replaced by a new facility known as the Harlem Meer Center in 2025.
The Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) is a coalition of institutions providing cultural and educational resources to the public in New York City that are subsidized by the city government. The group originated with the new location for the American Museum of Natural History in 1869, and as of 2024, the CIG includes 34 cultural institutions.
Frankie ‘Bones’ Mitchell is a prominent figure in the development of dance music within the United States. Widely regarded as the "Godfather of American Rave Culture". Throughout the 80s & 90, Frankie played a major role in developing NYC's underground party scene. Bones began his career in the early 1980s, spinning at clubs and parties throughout New York & New Jersey. Bones gained widespread global recognition after organizing the first outdoor dance music party in the US. Storm Rave took place in Williamsburg, Coney Island, & Plumb Beach. Throughout his career, Frankie has produced, remixed, and officially released countless tracks, albums, EP's, and mixtapes. He has also performed at many large scale music festivals around the world such as Love Parade and Insomniac's Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC).Frankie continues to be an influential figure in the community and remains active as a performer, producer, and author represented globally by Southfirst (S1).
The Clermont Avenue Skating Rink was a sports arena on Clermont Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, United States. It was home to the Brooklyn Skating Club and the Brooklyn Crescents of the American Amateur Hockey League from 1896 to 1906.
Fort George Amusement Park was a trolley park and amusement park that operated in the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods of Upper Manhattan, New York City, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It occupied an area between 190th and 192nd Streets east of Amsterdam Avenue, within present-day Highbridge Park.
Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace is a seasonal outdoor roller skating rink that opened in April 2022 in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It marks the revival of the original Flipper's, which operated in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981 and was dubbed "Studio 54 on wheels" by actor Jaclyn Smith.
United Skates of America, Inc. is a national roller skating rink chain founded in 1971. As of 2024, it is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. It operates 12 family entertainment centers in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Rhode Island.
The Branch Brook Park Roller Skating Center is a 12,000-square-foot roller rink located in Branch Brook Park in Newark, New Jersey. Managed by United Skates of America, its current iteration has operated since 1996.
The Roll-A-Palace Disco Skating Rink was a roller disco rink established in 1977 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Formerly a movie theater, it reopened as a rink at 1728 Sheepshead Bay Road.
Bill Butler, also known as Mr. Charisma, is a roller skater and choreographer credited with the invention of jam skating.
Jim Bray is a professional freestyle artistic roller skater. A performer and instructor, Bray competed in freestyle artistic skating for nearly a decade, prior to giving up his amateur status in order to co-star alongside Linda Blair in 1979 musical teensploitation film Roller Boogie.