When I was a kid in the '60s we had more reliably cold winters, the city would flood ball fields in at least four different parks to create huge ice rinks. I believe they all had warming houses and were open at night. Our rink was in Quentin Park and hundreds of people skated there every night. They had two record albums "Frankie Valley and The Four Seasons" and "The Supremes" which they would broadcast over loudspeakers over and over. Even back then there would be thaws and depending on if it was a short warm spell, they would reopen the rinks when the cold weather returned. They also lit up the sliding hill at night. It was very much fun. All Free! I did not live here then but wasn't there a rink in Washington Park it the '80s? I guess Lansing had more resources back then. {?} Today the weather has been cold enough for a week now to create an instant rink and looks like the cold will last. Adao Park would be a perfect place to simply flood the great lawn and put in a couple of fire pits, even if it lasted a few days or weeks it could happen!
While taking my morning walk along the Red Cedar over on campus, I noticed several small trees had been cut by animals. Today someone in Okemos posted a picture on "neighbors" site which come up on my msn feed page, anyway they posted a picture of two beavers out in the Red Cedar. The cut trees I saw were below the dam near Sparty so the critters must have been taking them down river towards Lansing. Maybe they have a dam in the river woods somewhere. Beavers in the Red Cedar! that is amazing to me!
@gbinlansing The ice rink at Washington Park persisted until the 2000's, they even added a second rink in one of those inflatable domes and built a bigger warming house. I'm still very sour that they haven't reopened it, it needs to happen.
I couldn't agree more with the sentiment regarding the Christmas market and rink in Reutter Park, it's truly an embarrassment.
I had a saved site plan for the ice rink proposed in for what is now Rotary Park, the space for it is still empty:
I learned to ice skate at the outdoor rink at Washington Park. It was a shame to see it go; it gave kids who don't usually get an opportunity to learn to do it an opportunity, since most rinks are located in the burbs, now. Washington Park was about as central a location in the metro as you could get.
I really love the one at Campus Martius in downtown Detroit. It's always packed around the holidays, to the point of where it's clear they could have quite a few more of these throughout the city. We really do need to take advantage of the winter we have here, and get people some light and fun exercise. Community things like this help build society. And not to get too philosophical or political, but municipalities complaining about cost don't seem to understand that relatively small investments like this - and the social return on those investments (lower crime, lower health care expenditures, etc) - is way cheaper and effective than offering multi-million tax breaks, incentives, etc to profitable multi-national corporations every year. lol
To have something like Campus Martius takes something special. You need a generally successful downtown, a vibrant specific neighborhood/shopping district with a suitable public space, multiple attractions/amenities in said public space, then you need to get the atmosphere & aesthetics right while keeping it clean and safe. Not something that can just be replicated at will.
I think there should be a casual ice rink downtown, in a similar vein that you see in many downtown plazas and parks, I'm particularly a fan of the ribbon/pathway style rinks for those situations. That being said I still think reopening one or both Washington Park ice rinks should be a priority for the city, they largely serve a different crowd from any downtown rink that they may have in mind.
I wasn't really talking of replicating Campus Martius, rather just commenting on a successful rink.
But even apart from that, none of that stuff really existed in downtown Detroit when the park was built. The district grew around the park. It's not a far-fetched or overly-ambitious idea for any city.
Out in New Hampshire in Portsmouth there is a really nice rink in an historic neighborhood of 18th Century buildings called Strawbery Banke. You can see it on many New England live webcam tours, it is near downtown where a lot of people still live. I think if it were nice and large enough there could be an Ice Path [like in Chicago] winding around one of our historic parks like Rutter or Durant Park Lansing could have a lot of people coming downtown to go Ice Skating. When it comes to good [and even fun] plans for the city the mayor never thinks outside his "nerdy" box. "let's do it on the cheap and see if works" seem to be his mantra. I agree that if you build something of quality people will come!
I was saying that I want something similar to Campus Martius. I don't know how we can create something similar in Lansing without any cool public spaces created by the street layout as you find in Detroit, that's what spurred my thought about fully pedestrianizing part of Washington Sq. Perhaps when one of the parking ramps is tore down the space could be used for something like this.
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I couldn't agree more with the sentiment regarding the Christmas market and rink in Reutter Park, it's truly an embarrassment.
I had a saved site plan for the ice rink proposed in for what is now Rotary Park, the space for it is still empty:
I really love the one at Campus Martius in downtown Detroit. It's always packed around the holidays, to the point of where it's clear they could have quite a few more of these throughout the city. We really do need to take advantage of the winter we have here, and get people some light and fun exercise. Community things like this help build society. And not to get too philosophical or political, but municipalities complaining about cost don't seem to understand that relatively small investments like this - and the social return on those investments (lower crime, lower health care expenditures, etc) - is way cheaper and effective than offering multi-million tax breaks, incentives, etc to profitable multi-national corporations every year. lol
I think there should be a casual ice rink downtown, in a similar vein that you see in many downtown plazas and parks, I'm particularly a fan of the ribbon/pathway style rinks for those situations. That being said I still think reopening one or both Washington Park ice rinks should be a priority for the city, they largely serve a different crowd from any downtown rink that they may have in mind.
But even apart from that, none of that stuff really existed in downtown Detroit when the park was built. The district grew around the park. It's not a far-fetched or overly-ambitious idea for any city.