United Skates of America was a popular roller skating rink in Greece – Democrat & Chronicle
It was the 1970s. Disco music throbbed on the airwaves. And roller skating, once again, was cool.
United Skates of America, on West Ridge Road in Greece, was the place to be. Hundreds of young people packed the place almost nightly to “boogie skate” to Top 40 tunes, to play foosball and video games like Frogger, to meet that special someone.
DJs set the tone. It wasn’t always disco — rock and easy-listening also blared from the loudspeakers. But make no mistake, it was the dance tunes that resurrected roller skating from the abyss.
“Disco creat(ed) a boom,” said James Vannurden, former director of the National Museum of Roller Skating in Lincoln, Nebraska.
United Skates of America opened at 1250 W. Ridge in 1976, at the height of the disco era. Within a few years, there were at least seven rinks in the Rochester area, including Sharkey’s in East Rochester, Roller World in Clarkson and Skate Town in Irondequoit.
The new era of skating was a far cry from the days when cheap metal skates were attached to shoes and adjusted with triangular keys. The new skates were lace-up boots with “sophisticated polyurethane-wheeled skates (that) cost between $40 and $800,” according to a 1980 news article. The skates came in “zippy colors and often with pegs under the toe which really look like glorified doorstops,” a story from the same year said.
High schools and colleges held skating parties. The sport rolled onto the streets. A guy named Irving Feldman opened Cheapskates, a hugely popular shop on Monroe Avenue, and sold hundreds of skates a year.
The crowds were huge at United Skates of America, also called USA. Even the “adult skates” on Monday nights, only for those 18 and older, were packed.
“We’re getting upwards of 700 people (on Mondays), but we’ve started to limit it to 600 because the adults don’t like the crowds as much as the kids,” rink manager Ken Scheffold told Michelle Fleckenstein in a 1980 news story. “With the kids, the bigger the crowd, the better. It’s gotten to be THE place to be.”
Some came for the speed skate, others waited for the couples skate. Skaters tapped their toes to “Rubberband Man” by The Spinners and “Car Wash” by Rose Royce. Those who misbehaved got a warning, and a subsequent infraction sent them to the “penalty box” at the back of the rink.
There were some problems. The owners tried extending the hours but were denied over concerns of “litter in the parking lot, excessive noise, and disturbances and property destruction in nearby neighborhoods sometimes attributed to patrons leaving the skating rink,” according to a 1983 article. A 1984 story described a “melee” when up to 1,000 teenagers got impatient while waiting for USA to open. The front door was smashed, and youths pushed by cashiers without paying.
For the most part, the good times far outweighed the bad. USA was a prime pickup joint, particularly on weekends.
“The boy-meets-girl scenario overshadows the traditional purpose of the rink in many ways,” a 1986 news feature about the skating craze stated.
Brian Hardick of Greece was a DJ at USA from 1981 to 1989. He performed under the name “DJ Brian” and mostly worked Friday nights.
“It was definitely a lot of fun,” said Hardick, who still DJs as “Flyin’ Brian” with Party Productions.
“Friday was more of a rock-and-roll night. Saturday night was disco with DJ Turk. Everybody used to go three or four times a week. They did the backwards skate, the couples skate, and the hitchhiker. “
The skating craze faded again in the 1980s, but came back when inline skates hit the market in the latter part of the decade. For USA, though, the end was near. The place closed in 1993. These days, the former skating rink is a Home Depot.
For those who were there during USA’s heyday, though, the memories, like the skate wheels, keep spinning around and around.
