NYC Parks Department Commissioner Sue Donoghue, who is shortly departing her post, had a quite successful tenure bolstering the city’s green spaces and should cap it off by handing the desperately needed restoration of Wollman Rink to the Central Park Conservancy.
First opened in 1950, Wollman, at the park’s southern end, was Donald Trump’s first big public triumph in 1986, when he took over renovations that the city had fumbled while the rink was closed for six years. Now, the Conservancy, the dedicated nonprofit that has managed the park for decades, restoring its many wonders, can do the same for Wollman.
The best proof of the Conservancy’s ability to bring in a rebuilt and renewed Wollman on schedule and on budget is at the park’s northern end, where the Lasker pool and rink once stood. Leaking and crumbling, the 1966 Lasker was demolished in 2021 and in its place is the brand new Davis Center.
Donoghue did plenty as commissioner, most notably in trying to fix the lifeguard shortage and seeing the retirement of the dictatorial lifeguard union chief Peter Stein, who finally left the city payroll on Jan. 14 after 60 years! Hopefully, this summer, without Stein’s meddling, there will be more lifeguards staffing the beaches and pools.
But one thing that Donoghue didn’t do was build the new Davis Center. That was the work of the Conservancy. The new facility is splendid. Lasker was unique in being a swimming pool between the end of school in late June and Labor Day and then converting to ice skating during the winter.
Now, Davis has added two more seasons: spring and fall. The oval pool bed is now covered with green artificial turf, making for year round use by park goers. The bathrooms are new and working, as are the water fountains.
When the indoor building at Davis closes at 7 p.m., the outdoor oval remains open until sunset. While the pool is somewhat smaller than Lasker’s, (it’s still very big) the new place fits much better in the park setting, with improvements to the Ravine to south and the Meer to the north.
The water running from the Pool along Central Park West, flowing through the Loch, now continues uninterrupted to the Meer, as Lasker had dammed over the stream. And the southern approach under the Huddlestone Arch is now pleasant, instead of emerging from the rustic path in the woods to arrive at Lasker’s loading dock and garbage dumpster.
Building an ice rink is complicated with pumping and freezing the water and maintaining for the whole skating season and the timeworn Wollman needs a rebuild since the work Trump did 40 years ago. The Parks Department and Donoghue put out a request for bidders to fix up and run Wollman, but the answer is sitting right in the park.
The Conservancy has not only successfully built an ice rink at Davis, it was an even trickier job as Davis needs to switch to a swimming pool, requiring different pumps and filters. Before she leaves at the end of the month, Donoghue should withdraw the request for Wollman bids and give the assignment to the Conservancy.
Unlike a private operator, the Conservancy wouldn’t extract profit from Wollman, where pickleball is $120 an hour and it costs up to $38 to ice skate. Before it closed, skating at Lasker was $9. That’s much more like it.
