Old logo from 2012.
Another old logo from 2012 or eariler.
Newer and most recent logo. In flyers online and in print, they usually changed colors on the logo so each is unique on its own. But the standard what was shown above.
Courtesy of Yelp. WOW! Fancy! For a roller rink? Interesting! This was why it was originally called Crystal Skate Palace. Those lights!
Yelp. Now you can see a fan took that excellent picture because now you can see why! Really can attract people to come! The frontage looked very much like a movie theater because of the long light box panels with schedule on it. Just like a movie theater would have.
Yelp. Awesome sign! Very professional. But the window for admission. The butterflies and a chick.. does not look good on it though. Notice on the right side? It says, "You are being watched" Yes, security cameras. But better off also to have good security or hired police officers.
Courtesy of Yelp. Eating area, rest area... Linoleum floor tiles. Dark area in background was the rink floor.
Courtesy of Temple Hills Skating Palace. Eating area. I see different tiles on the floor. Beautiful walls and murals! I like it.
Yes, Skaters, they had a banquet hall! Great for wedding receptions! And yes, similar kind of chandlers you see in this photo as it was shown outside.
Yelp. Large menu.
Courtesy of Temple Hills Skate Palace.
Courtesy of Temple Hills Skating Palace. Noticed how clean that logo is? And dark background. It helps the logo pops well and in fact, the wall is curved and the letterings in the photo looks like straight and pops out directly at you. Look at it for a moment. You will see it does move toward to you.
Courtesy of Temple Hills Skating Palace on Facebook. First one is with the brief post along with the fancier post. The second one is more clear and close up for you to read the entire post that you may not be able to with the first post above.
Crystal's Skate Palace 3132 Branch Ave, Temple Hills, MD
Temple Hills Skating Palace 3132 Branch Ave, Temple Hills, MD
Temple Hills Skating Palace 3132 Branch Ave, Temple Hills, MD
Originally, it was Crystal's Skate Palace that was operated on 3132 Branch Avenue in Temple Hills, MD starting in 1984 and along the way, it became Temple Hills Skating Palace, a corporate franchise of United Skates of America. Crystal's Skate Palace was also owned by a corporation called Crystal Skates Limited.
So, another United Skates of America rink closed for good on April 5, 2021. There were many franchises or chain owned.
Actually, this rink had many names. Anyone can help me with that?
The operator for this generation of rink as Temple Hills Skating Palace was Thomas Taylor.
This rink according to an article in the Washington Post clearly explained this was not a safe place and a person who made a comment on a website about this rink were crimes occurred. Twice there were shooting and this known rapper was killed (The Washington Post reported that). The other crimes were a break in spree in the parking lot that this guy had a backpack with his important documents were stolen and another car had another break in. It was windows they broke in! Locking in your car is not always going to help these days. A well lit parking lot and having security guards outside really can hinder crimes from happening. Temple Hills says they were losing money because of limits. I believe in my opinion, remember again, I say, opinion of my own. It is because more people realize it was a bad spot where the rink was due to crimes and location, people were avoiding for quite a while. Another thing, today trends people prefer to return back to a true local mom-and-pop businesses, not a chain. This was a chain rink. There are other rinks locals will now have to go further out in MD or even in VA or PA.
By the way, with that shooting, it was on On June 11th, 1989. Long time ago. I do not know what the fate of the shooters if they were caught or not.
The Washington Post also reported more than just that shooting. It also reported that in December 1987, a 19-year-old man was fatally shot after a fight between rival gangs outside the rink. Also in September 1988, a 13-year-old youth allegedly fired a shotgun into a crowd after a fight between two groups of rink patrons, slightly wounding three persons. In December, an 18-year-old D.C. man was fatally shot as he left with a crowd at closing.
I do not know if there were any more shooting or crimes occurred of that calibrator since 1989. I am sure there were more but I could not see that online. I believe they may have had more shootings. The break in the vehicles more recent times showed me that they did not have security outside on the property of the rink. It was possible they did have more violence occurrences at the rink.
It is sad about this.
I do not know what the fate of this rink will be. Usually with United Skates of America, if they have wooden floor and closing, they do not sell to another potential rink operator and destroy the maple floor by sanding it down to dust. Bad idea. Donate wood material is the best tax write off. Or sell pieces to skaters to remember by. That is even the best of all.
The Interior.
Aging stained Maple floor and they did patch jobs rather than replacing entire floor which made the whole floor looks terrible with patches. Un-matching look. If one part is damage, replace whole floor is best method.
They had murals all over and its not fully graffiti but more of a mixture of art and graffiti so its hard to say. It is a blend. They had the big name logo on one end of the rink and they had many different style of art and semi-graffiti here and there. But it was more borderlined on that. But very colorful on eating area.
They had Dusty White and Red checkered linoleum on the floor in eating area and snack bar.
What I love are the huge professional looking sign for packages for individual, and groups versions. Very amusement park sign for that while the menu sign showed many choices of food. It was really a cafe or a restaurant, literally, not a snack bar. A restaurant counter like you find at your favorite fast food restaurant. This should make theme parks jealous or at least any other rinks jealous of full-house menu that was held at Temple Hills Skating Palace.
They even have a banquet style room all fancy like you would find at a hotel or a large restaurant. Excellent for wedding reception or a corporate dinner or company Christmas party.
I see the floor though that needed to be either replaced or at least washed! The other part of the floorplan was carpeted.
The Exterior.
This rink is part of a shopping plaza with at least 4 or 5 businesses and a church.
This is one of most unusual looking facility for a roller rink because you can see two tall crystal chandlers hanging from the ceiling with windows wrapped around those chandlers above the admission doors. Very unusual and interesting. I understood why it was called Crystal Skating Palace because of those crystal chandlers. Made sense on that. But I am sure the new owner changed name because that is the norm that usually with new owners, it means new names when registered because maybe it was not part of the deal of contract. You are buying the building, business and not the name.
It is well lit with those chandlers. Big time shining. Under that, there is a long light panel box that showed movie theater style scheduling for each session. It is a little hard to see because you are so focused on the light chandlers.
Updates: They are still trying to negotiate to keep the rink open but we will see. This is written on April 6, 2021 which already closed for business. Stay tuned. If they are reopening again, this moves to links section.
The Stats:
Rink Size: N/A. Floor: Maple, stained, Polyurethane coated. Floor Layout: Fan with Frame format.
Building Size: N/A. Built: N/A. Demolished: Still standing.
Type of Building: Free-Span Steel Truss Steel-Walled Warehouse - like Building.
Roof: Gable.
Acres: N/A.
Operated: (Overall)-- N/A.
Crystal's Skate Palace: 1984 to N/A.
Temple Hill Skating Center: N/A to April 5, 2021.
Reason for Closure: N/A.
Crystal's Skate Palace N/A.
Temple Hill Skating Center: cannot make profit with limited capacity due to COVID rules.
Wanted: Information regarding exact dates of open/closed, why closed, size of rink, rink materials. Also photos. Anyone knows or have photos, please let me know by emailing at [email protected]. Thank you.
Sources: WUSA 9 - Announcing to close rink; Dun & Bradstreet - Temple Hills Skating Palace;
Amusement-Parks - Temple Hills Skating Palace; BBB - Temple Hills SP; The Washington Post - Known Rapper shot to death at the rink parking lot (By Pierre ThomasJune 12, 1989); Real News Mag - About the rapper and the killer; United Skates of America - Temple Hills Skating Palace website, PDF Version; Yelp - Temple Hills SP;
Manta - Crystal Skate Palace; BBB - Crystal Skating Palace; Facebook - Crystal Skate Palace;
Facebook - Temple Hills Skating Palace;
Note- The Enquirer-Gazette limits to one view that you could ont read the entire article unless you subscribe therefore, it will NOT be added as source. Please tell your local news people to start volunteering themselves and not get paid OR get themselves more advertisment or sky high prices of advertisement. The First Amendment did not say to charge people for Freedom of Press. It says just free to speak, period. So, all media should be free like Dead-Rinks is FREE! Also please do not subscribe to your local newspaper until they are free or they themselves go out of business.
Date of issue: 28 March 2021.
© Copyrighted by Dead-Rinks. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:16.
So, another United Skates of America rink closed for good on April 5, 2021. There were many franchises or chain owned.
Actually, this rink had many names. Anyone can help me with that?
The operator for this generation of rink as Temple Hills Skating Palace was Thomas Taylor.
This rink according to an article in the Washington Post clearly explained this was not a safe place and a person who made a comment on a website about this rink were crimes occurred. Twice there were shooting and this known rapper was killed (The Washington Post reported that). The other crimes were a break in spree in the parking lot that this guy had a backpack with his important documents were stolen and another car had another break in. It was windows they broke in! Locking in your car is not always going to help these days. A well lit parking lot and having security guards outside really can hinder crimes from happening. Temple Hills says they were losing money because of limits. I believe in my opinion, remember again, I say, opinion of my own. It is because more people realize it was a bad spot where the rink was due to crimes and location, people were avoiding for quite a while. Another thing, today trends people prefer to return back to a true local mom-and-pop businesses, not a chain. This was a chain rink. There are other rinks locals will now have to go further out in MD or even in VA or PA.
By the way, with that shooting, it was on On June 11th, 1989. Long time ago. I do not know what the fate of the shooters if they were caught or not.
The Washington Post also reported more than just that shooting. It also reported that in December 1987, a 19-year-old man was fatally shot after a fight between rival gangs outside the rink. Also in September 1988, a 13-year-old youth allegedly fired a shotgun into a crowd after a fight between two groups of rink patrons, slightly wounding three persons. In December, an 18-year-old D.C. man was fatally shot as he left with a crowd at closing.
I do not know if there were any more shooting or crimes occurred of that calibrator since 1989. I am sure there were more but I could not see that online. I believe they may have had more shootings. The break in the vehicles more recent times showed me that they did not have security outside on the property of the rink. It was possible they did have more violence occurrences at the rink.
It is sad about this.
I do not know what the fate of this rink will be. Usually with United Skates of America, if they have wooden floor and closing, they do not sell to another potential rink operator and destroy the maple floor by sanding it down to dust. Bad idea. Donate wood material is the best tax write off. Or sell pieces to skaters to remember by. That is even the best of all.
The Interior.
Aging stained Maple floor and they did patch jobs rather than replacing entire floor which made the whole floor looks terrible with patches. Un-matching look. If one part is damage, replace whole floor is best method.
They had murals all over and its not fully graffiti but more of a mixture of art and graffiti so its hard to say. It is a blend. They had the big name logo on one end of the rink and they had many different style of art and semi-graffiti here and there. But it was more borderlined on that. But very colorful on eating area.
They had Dusty White and Red checkered linoleum on the floor in eating area and snack bar.
What I love are the huge professional looking sign for packages for individual, and groups versions. Very amusement park sign for that while the menu sign showed many choices of food. It was really a cafe or a restaurant, literally, not a snack bar. A restaurant counter like you find at your favorite fast food restaurant. This should make theme parks jealous or at least any other rinks jealous of full-house menu that was held at Temple Hills Skating Palace.
They even have a banquet style room all fancy like you would find at a hotel or a large restaurant. Excellent for wedding reception or a corporate dinner or company Christmas party.
I see the floor though that needed to be either replaced or at least washed! The other part of the floorplan was carpeted.
The Exterior.
This rink is part of a shopping plaza with at least 4 or 5 businesses and a church.
This is one of most unusual looking facility for a roller rink because you can see two tall crystal chandlers hanging from the ceiling with windows wrapped around those chandlers above the admission doors. Very unusual and interesting. I understood why it was called Crystal Skating Palace because of those crystal chandlers. Made sense on that. But I am sure the new owner changed name because that is the norm that usually with new owners, it means new names when registered because maybe it was not part of the deal of contract. You are buying the building, business and not the name.
It is well lit with those chandlers. Big time shining. Under that, there is a long light panel box that showed movie theater style scheduling for each session. It is a little hard to see because you are so focused on the light chandlers.
Updates: They are still trying to negotiate to keep the rink open but we will see. This is written on April 6, 2021 which already closed for business. Stay tuned. If they are reopening again, this moves to links section.
The Stats:
Rink Size: N/A. Floor: Maple, stained, Polyurethane coated. Floor Layout: Fan with Frame format.
Building Size: N/A. Built: N/A. Demolished: Still standing.
Type of Building: Free-Span Steel Truss Steel-Walled Warehouse - like Building.
Roof: Gable.
Acres: N/A.
Operated: (Overall)-- N/A.
Crystal's Skate Palace: 1984 to N/A.
Temple Hill Skating Center: N/A to April 5, 2021.
Reason for Closure: N/A.
Crystal's Skate Palace N/A.
Temple Hill Skating Center: cannot make profit with limited capacity due to COVID rules.
Wanted: Information regarding exact dates of open/closed, why closed, size of rink, rink materials. Also photos. Anyone knows or have photos, please let me know by emailing at [email protected]. Thank you.
Sources: WUSA 9 - Announcing to close rink; Dun & Bradstreet - Temple Hills Skating Palace;
Amusement-Parks - Temple Hills Skating Palace; BBB - Temple Hills SP; The Washington Post - Known Rapper shot to death at the rink parking lot (By Pierre ThomasJune 12, 1989); Real News Mag - About the rapper and the killer; United Skates of America - Temple Hills Skating Palace website, PDF Version; Yelp - Temple Hills SP;
Manta - Crystal Skate Palace; BBB - Crystal Skating Palace; Facebook - Crystal Skate Palace;
Facebook - Temple Hills Skating Palace;
Note- The Enquirer-Gazette limits to one view that you could ont read the entire article unless you subscribe therefore, it will NOT be added as source. Please tell your local news people to start volunteering themselves and not get paid OR get themselves more advertisment or sky high prices of advertisement. The First Amendment did not say to charge people for Freedom of Press. It says just free to speak, period. So, all media should be free like Dead-Rinks is FREE! Also please do not subscribe to your local newspaper until they are free or they themselves go out of business.
Date of issue: 28 March 2021.
© Copyrighted by Dead-Rinks. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:16.