Wollman Rink
— — the city held still around a sheet of ice.
Not only on a wall.
“An outdoor rink at the lower edge of Central Park, with the towers of Midtown standing over it. The sound is blades on cold water and a loudspeaker somewhere behind the trees. In late afternoon the buildings turn a long warm colour and the ice keeps a thin reflection of all of it. Families come, first-timers come, couples come on Friday nights. Open from late October to early April, weather allowing. from the studio
Wollman Rink, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Wollman Rink sits at the southern edge of Central Park in Manhattan, near the entrance at Sixth Avenue and 59th Street. The 33,000-square-foot outdoor rink opened in 1949 as a gift from philanthropist Kate Wollman and the Wollman family, who endowed it for public skating. It operates seasonally from late October through early April, drawing roughly 300,000 skaters a year. The rink frames an unobstructed view north into the park and south to the towers along Central Park South, with the Plaza Hotel and the buildings of Billionaires' Row standing over the trees.
The rink runs on a north-south axis, which is what makes the late-afternoon hour worth waiting for. Around 4 p.m. in December the sun drops behind the Hudson side of the city and the western face of every tower along Central Park South catches a long warm light. The ice picks up a thin version of the same colour. By 5 p.m. the lamps along the path come on and the surface reads colder again. Skaters who know the rink come for that one-hour seam.
The Wollman season is short and weather-dependent. The rink opens in late October once the chillers can hold the surface, and closes in early April when the spring sun begins to soften it. The busiest weeks run from Thanksgiving through New Year, when the surrounding park goes quiet and the rink stays lit until 10 or 11 p.m. The 2021 transition to Wollman Park Partners ended the long Trump Organization concession that had run the rink since 1986, and the season schedule has held steady since.