After a long push, roller skating in Downtown’s Red Arrow Park finally became a reality this summer. But organizers remain irked by limited hours, issues surrounding the playing of music and the lack of on-site skate rentals at the county-operated park.
Terrence Clarke, who leads the nonprofit group Roll Train, which is devoted to Black culture roller skating, has worked for nearly a decade to bring skating to Red Arrow Park. He went as far as to claim that racial issues are behind the restrictions and he and his organization are demanding that roller skaters be given the access and amenities that are equal to those given to ice skaters who use Red Arrow Park during winter months.
The effort to have roller skating at Red Arrow has been repeatedly stymied over the years by Milwaukee County Parks and the Office of Milwaukee County Executive, Clarke said. At one point, he said, the county urged the group to abandon its efforts at Red Arrow and focus instead on using a large slab behind the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, 1531 W. Vliet St., located more than a mile away and outside the bustling heart of Downtown.
“Right then and there I said, ‘This has got to be a racial thing,’” Clarke said. “Why would they ask us to specifically go there?”
Clarke provided emails to Milwaukee Magazine that show exchanges he had with a then-staffer in former County Executive Chris Abele’s office in May 2017 that stated decisions about the use of Red Arrow Park are made by the Milwaukee County Parks Director – John Dargle at the time – and his staff. The email said that the recommendation from the County Parks Department back then was to only allow ice skating at Red Arrow Park and that Abele had no intention of overriding the recommendation.
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A follow-up email from the same staffer stated that the Parks Department would “continue to utilize an abundance of caution to protect the expensive infrastructure to the ice rink and we will not allow roller skating, bike riding, etc. on this space.” The message went on to state that Abele and his staff “must act in the best interest of the county and its assets in the face of ever more challenging budgetary circumstances.” The email concluded with the suggestion that the group focus on roller skating on the cement pad in King Park as an alternative.
Brandon Weathersby, spokesman for current County Executive David Crowley, said county government is “sensitive to some of those inequities that exist in our community” when determining programming and park usage, whether it’s roller skating or any other initiative.
But he noted that Milwaukee County Board Chairwoman Marcelia Nicholson led the effort to allocate funding for roller skating at Red Arrow Park, not the Parks Department or the Office of the County Executive, which Crowley has occupied since 2020. The County Board approved $30,000 for roller skating operations this season, with no money allocated for skate rentals, DJs or extended hours, Weathersby said.
As for ice skating at Red Arrow Park, the rink now known as Slice of Ice has a long history at the site and has demonstrated a positive rate of return every year, Weathersby said.
“So, there is significantly more funding from the board and other sources, like sponsors and so forth, that want to be associated with that programming during the winter season,” he said. “That is why there are dollars for skate rentals, longer hours and music and entertainment.”
Milwaukee County Parks will present a report at the end of the season that will specify how much revenue roller skating at Red Arrow Park generated, rink usage and the number of special events held, Weathersby noted.
“We can’t predict the future, and I can’t tell you whether the board will push for the same amount of money again, or if the chairwoman will push for more dollars because it has demonstrated success,” he said.
Although the county finally agreed to allow roller skating on a limited trial basis at the Red Arrow Park rink this summer, serious concerns remain, according to Clarke. He questioned the restrictions on the hours of operation, noting that the rink is open for roller skating from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
“Red Arrow Park is activated for roller skating every day, but the hours aren’t really conducive to the skating community,” Clarke said. “[10 a.m.] to 3 p.m. on weekdays? We’re all at work. We get off work and we want to go skating, but we can’t.”
Few skaters have been showing up to skate during the weekday time slot, Clarke said. “There are attendants there to count heads, but there aren’t heads to count during those hours,” he said. “It’s almost like they set it up to fail.”
In addition to setting limited hours, the county isn’t providing music for roller skaters, even though it does during the winter for ice skating. “It’s a skate rink, and that involves having music to skate to,” Clarke said. “There is no music unless you bring your own.”
Outside of the set hours, the county has established what Clarke and others feel is an exorbitant fee to use the Red Arrow rink for roller skating.
“If you want to rent or have an event at the space, it’s $610 fee just to reserve the space and then you have to pay a noise ordinance fee if you want to have music and then they are requesting that you have a $1 million insurance policy to cover anything else,” Clarke said. “You have to go through all these hoops if you want to have an event there.”
Roll Train and Milwaukee Downtown Business Improvement District #21 have been hosting Summer Spinz events at the Red Arrow rink, the first in June followed by another this past Friday night. The final session is set for Aug. 18. The event runs from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., features DJs, free skating lessons and food trucks and is hyped as a celebration of the local skate culture.
A large, diverse crowd of skaters and spectators of various ages gathered at the rink on the most recent Friday night. A group, some wearing skates with lighted wheels, danced in unison in the middle of the rink to music played by DJs while dozens of others skated around them on the rink’s outer edge. Excited onlookers lined the outside of the rink, while others viewed the action from a perch overlooking the park.
An estimated 250 people attended the first Summer Spinz event on June 16 and more than 750 people attended the July event, according to Gabe Yeager, director of public space initiatives for Milwaukee Downtown. Friday’s festivities occurred while large crowds also flocked to Evanescent, an internationally touring public art installation made up of iridescent inflatable bubbles, which was on display a block away at Marcus Performing Arts Center.
“Many people walked between both our activations at the Marcus Performing Arts Center and Red Arrow Park and several came for our Barbie movie photo ops,” Yeager said. “The total estimated attendance on Friday evening between both activations was about 4,000.”
The big, enthusiastic gatherings of skaters at the BID-sponsored events are proof that regular nighttime skate hours would be successful, said Ellen Fine, who co-founded Roll Train with Clarke in 2017 to serve mainly as a roller fitness class before the group expanded its efforts into roller skating advocacy. But the limitations on roller skating at Red Arrow at all other times won’t draw crowds, she added.
“There’s no programming, no music. Sometimes there is one skater out there by themselves,” said Fine. “It takes music and a welcoming environment to have people come there en masse. There should be music there all the time so the public can just go out there and skate. But the county wants us to go through so much rigmarole.”
Roller skating, long a refuge for Black people across the country, has seen a resurgence in recent years. Black skaters had been banned from rinks in many segregated places and even after the Civil Rights Act was adopted in 1964, many roller-skating venues would set aside only one night per week for Black skaters. As a result, the Black roller-skating culture, although thriving, often remained an underground activity.
“We were not allowed in the rinks, so we skated outside,” Clarke said. “There used to be pop-up tents that would be put up just so we could skate.”
Even after Black skaters gained access to rinks, owners of the facilities would often put stipulations on the skaters as to the types of skates they wore, how they dressed and what music would be played, Clarke said.
“A lot of the music that’s played in some of the rinks, even today, we don’t skate to,” Clarke said. “The skate DJs and the music that is played is so much of a big part of skating that if a particular DJ isn’t at the rink, we might not skate.”
Clarke stressed the lasting importance of roller-skating in Black culture.
“It’s brought a lot of people together and kept a lot of people out of trouble and off the streets,” he said. “Families have raised their kids in the rink, from generation to generation. It’s a way for us to unwind and release stress. It’s camaraderie. All skaters consider each other family. They look out for each other.”
Clarke said it’s common for Black skaters in the Milwaukee area to travel to visit rinks in other cities. “Every city has a different style of skating, but they all have a huge roller-skating culture and community. You learn the other styles when you visit another city. Roller skating has an energy when we’re all together that is unmatched with anything else or any sport or physical activity. It’s fun. It’s creative. You’re connecting with people, the music and the culture any time you skate.”
Last August, a rally and party was held in support of the effort to create an outdoor roller-skating rink at Red Arrow Park. Organizers noted that the Red Arrow rink isn’t used for about 75% of the year, or when weather conditions don’t allow for ice skating.
In May 2022, Milwaukee County supervisors unanimously approved a resolution authored by Chairwoman Nicholson and Supervisor Ryan Clancy to require Milwaukee County Parks to present a plan for use of Red Arrow Park as a roller-skating rink.
The plan presented by Milwaukee County Parks a month later cited the need for additional funding and time, in part to put down a protective covering over the rink’s concrete base and to install temporary framing around the rink. Nicholson presented a plan to funnel $175,000 toward a pilot program for the rink but Crowley vetoed that plan in July 2022, citing budgetary concerns. Crowley said at the time that his objection stemmed from the compressed timeline of the proposed project and the need to consider Milwaukee County’s overall and ongoing fiscal health.
“This month, Milwaukee County celebrates Park and Recreation Month, recognizing the role of parks and recreational activities in improving community health and advancing racial equity,” Nicholson said in a statement to Milwaukee Magazine. “Our goal is for Milwaukee County to become the healthiest county in Wisconsin, and this new initiative was set in motion by my office with that intent. I am proud to have authored a resolution requesting a $175,000 investment in the rollout of roller skating at Red Arrow Park. That resolution passed our board but was subsequently vetoed. Following that, I introduced a budget amendment to provide funding for staff support.”
Roll Train maintained that the level of funding requested by Nicholson wasn’t needed because a protective covering wasn’t necessary and that the rink as it currently exists can and should be used for roller skating, with programming provided by Milwaukee’s roller-skating community.
“There are attendants there to count heads, but there aren’t heads to count during those hours … It’s almost like they set it up to fail.”
– Terrence Clarke
Roller skating proponents noted that other ice rinks across the country allow roller skating at ice rinks during warmer months, including the Guidant John Rose Minnesota Oval in Roseville, Minnesota, which serves as a speed-skating oval and a rink for the winter sport of bandy; the Recreation Outdoor Center, also in Minnesota; the Olympic Center in Lake Placid, New York, which also operates as a speed-skating oval in the winter months; and the Plaza at Gateway Park in Neenah, among others.
Clarke made specific mention of the Rollout Detroit roller rink at the Monroe Street Midway in Michigan’s largest city as a prime example of a successful roller-skating endeavor in an urban setting – “in the middle of downtown,” Clarke said. Rollout Detroit, the city’s only such rink, operates from noon to 11 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and noon to 9 p.m. on Sundays. Sessions for kids have prerecorded music, while adult sessions feature a live DJ.
“If you skate, everybody is family. Everybody loves the same thing,” Clarke said. “When you go to these skate parties, there is no violence. Everybody is just there to skate. The vendors make money, the hotels make money. Everybody makes money.”
Clarke again said that he believes race has played a part in the challenges Roll Train has faced in bringing skating to Downtown. “They are simply looking at how many Black people are going to come down here and possibly create trouble. They don’t believe in what we’re doing. They are really trying to overshadow the real skate community in Milwaukee. The latest Summer Spinz was a Barbie movie promotion. Barbie doesn’t have anything to do with the skate culture.”
Fine echoed Clarke’s sentiments.
“Why are ice skaters allowed to skate any time they want but roller skaters cannot? This is a very good activity for mental health, physical health and cultural health and for bringing people together outside,” she said. “Everybody skates together. People do routines together. It’s a very organic situation.”
Roll Train has the option to work with Milwaukee County Parks for a special use permit that would allow the group to host an event of its liking at a cost that the county views as reasonable, Weathersby said. “It’s not a prohibitive cost, it’s not a high barrier to overcome, and it’s something that groups throughout the season have done,” he said. “If (Clarke) wants to have an old-school skate culture event there, there’s nothing prohibiting that.”
Fine, however, is worried that the limited hours and amenities for daily roller skating won’t attract enough skaters to convince the county of the viability of having it return next summer. “We’re proving it as much as we can, but we don’t know what will happen next year,” she said. “We’re really trying within the confines of something challenging.”
Fine said she’s worried that the county’s overall budget woes also could hinder efforts to make roller skating at the Red Arrow rink permanent.
“There’s a whole bunch of other issues when it comes to the county not having money for the parks,” Fine said. “That’s been going on for a long time. Red Arrow is not a problem, but I could see it getting lost in the shuffle. They aren’t going to put money into Red Arrow when they don’t have enough money as it is, and what they do have they have to spread around to all these other parks that are in disrepair. But it doesn’t take much to have roller skating at Red Arrow.”
The County Parks Department, tasked with implementing roller skating at Red Arrow Park, will be asked for a status update report in September so that the Milwaukee County Board can assess the program’s impact and allocate future resources accordingly, Nicholson said.
“I look forward to our continued collaboration,” she added.
The crowds at the rink for the initial Summer Spinz event in June made it an emotional event for many skaters, Clarke said.
“They talked about how when they came around the corner and saw all these people, they got tears in their eyes,” he said. “It was really heartfelt. Over this whole 10 years, they knew how it could be, and they finally saw it in person. They were overwhelmed. Everyone was having fun and was joyous. People who were just walking by stopped in their tracks.”
Fine said employees who work at nearby office buildings overlooking the park were shooting videos on their phones to document the event.
“We saw a lot of people crying – that’s how important this is to a whole community of people in Milwaukee that are not being represented Downtown,” she said. “It’s more than just skating to them. They’ve never seen what they do being represented Downtown. It’s always had to be somewhere else or in a rink that is on the outskirts of Downtown, not where everyone can see them. This is really important.”
