soleil1016
Ice Skaters at Rockefeller Center
From October through April, more than a quarter of a million people will don skates and circle the ice rink at Rockefeller Center. Why? Because the rink has been infused with romance and fantasy ever since it opened on Christmas Day, 1936, at the height of the Great Depression.
Blame it on New York City and the absurdity of devoting that much commercial space to a skating rink. Blame it on Paul Manship’s brilliant gilded statue of Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends. But blame it mostly on the movies. The rink at Rockefeller Center could have been designed as a setting for a romantic comedy.
Romance and fantasy…and yet there it is, open to the public. Open to children learning to skate, open to young couples on their first date, open to would-be Olympians and former medal winners, open to old couples who’ve rented skates every holiday season for the last half century, open to anybody who believes in romance and fantasy and could use a little of it in their lives.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
