Lasker Rink

[1] 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.

[4] The rink was supposed to be completed in mid-1966, but flood damage caused by poor drainage prevented the pool from opening as scheduled.

[8] In 1986, real estate developer Donald Trump made an offer to New York City mayor Ed Koch to rebuild at no cost the deteriorating Wollman Rink in return for a franchise to operate the rink and an adjacent restaurant to recoup his costs.

[15] On January 13, 2021, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city government would be severing all contracts with the Trump Organization, saying Trump had been involved in the previous week's storming of the United States Capitol.

[16][17] The city later allowed the rinks to stay open until the scheduled end of the skating season.

[22] After repairs to the rink progressed at a faster rate than originally expected,[23] it reopened two weeks after the initial closure.

A boardwalk would be added along the newly restored Loch, and a new year-round facility would be built east of the site of the previous rink.

[29] Demolition and reconstruction was scheduled to begin in early 2021,[30][31] and a groundbreaking ceremony for the project began in September 2021.

Between 2019 and its final operating season in 2021, 87% of Lasker Pool and Rink users were New York City residents.

Nearly half or 45% were from the immediately surrounding neighborhoods such as Harlem, East Harlem, and Manhattan Valley, while 26% came from other Upper Manhattan neighborhoods and the Bronx, and 16% came from elsewhere in the city,[7] Lasker Rink was host to an annual charity adult hockey tournament, The Central Park Classic, taking place over Presidents Day weekend, ran by the Canadian Association of New York, which drew teams from all over the northeast, including teams from Canada.