The Process of Cataloging
Here at International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation©, an International Commercial Archeology Preservation© Group in a small bedroom-sized studio of mine where I do all my art work, design, and writing ebooks, and of course, working on Rinks and any other commercial history and profiling each former rink I find on the net and from fans like you provided me with information. Already this week two fans wrote and asked me in details how I do this and what I love to do although I love designing and writing the most. I love to design products, automotive including automobiles, snowmobiles, and recreational vehicles but also love to design architecturally. I am a Freelance Designer, Artist, and Writer. But also I am an Historian because I love history. It goes in hand to hand with art and design. This what makes me interested in commercial history. Having lived during 20th Century with much history of past thousands of years behind me and living through it such as 1960s with men to the moon as I recalled watching and I was 5 years old watching Neil Armstrong put his foot on the moon.
Among other major historical events occurred such as Woodstock, The American Revolution Bicentennial Celebration in 1976, the shuttles, Pac-Man, Rubik Cube, Cabbage Patch, even Pong as I recalled playing that first home based video game and riding the Kitty Cat as well the Ariens and Fox Trac snowmobiles as my first time.
Another first I went through my life at the peak was roller skating in 1978. (See About page) I recalled first time it was wall to wall literally you could not go through people who were standing still off the floor on their blue-and-green carpet and spool stools benches. I was not worried with the bell bottoms pants or bell bottom sleeves on their shirts and their big hair back then. It was the roller floor packed wall to wall
A week later, I wanted to go back and I did put on pairs of rented skates for first time. I did not have those helpers. I still call them walkers on wheels. Without that, I pushed myself and made it to skate so well by 3rd week which was already first weekend of April. And started to ask the girls to skate. Couple skates that is.
I was so much interested in their Blue and Green and White colors at Empire Skates in Dewitt. And how they designed the place.
Sadly Empire closed with averaging 7 people per night. I counted. But I did not stop skating.
However, that graduating year of 1983 in the month of June two major changes impacted us youths at the time: Empire Skates East was closing on the Erie Boulevard East in DeWitt and just next block real close was the number 27th McDonalds that they secretly torn down ignoring Henry Ford Museum's wish to purchase the old iconic double Golden Arches Salt-Box restaurant. (good news that the museum learned lesson quickly and bought another McD for their museum collection.)
I took architecture drawings and mechanical drawings (drafting) in high school and I was highest graded in school history with average of 97. Thanks Mr. Buell!
At vocational school I took Architectural drawing course and earned certificate that I can design my own house or some places simple. I continue to do drafting or drawings related to architecture. I even did murals.
This is why and where I fits in here at Dead-Rinks that I combined my passion in roller skating, architectural design, mural paintings I have done, and even worked at Sports-O-Rama Roller Rink in 1990 to 1991. I left because I got better paying job and full time at a bank processing center only they closed three or so months later.
With combined experience in design, drafting, CAD drafting, mural painting, working in retail, and worked at a roller rink, plus experience in roller skating and learned from one of my friends who long since passed away. His name was Tom who owned Empire Skates West Rebooted (Baldwinsville, NY) on "Operating Roller Rink Business 101."
Now, you wanted to know how I do this as a couple of you asked and I am sure you too have asked.
Among other major historical events occurred such as Woodstock, The American Revolution Bicentennial Celebration in 1976, the shuttles, Pac-Man, Rubik Cube, Cabbage Patch, even Pong as I recalled playing that first home based video game and riding the Kitty Cat as well the Ariens and Fox Trac snowmobiles as my first time.
Another first I went through my life at the peak was roller skating in 1978. (See About page) I recalled first time it was wall to wall literally you could not go through people who were standing still off the floor on their blue-and-green carpet and spool stools benches. I was not worried with the bell bottoms pants or bell bottom sleeves on their shirts and their big hair back then. It was the roller floor packed wall to wall
A week later, I wanted to go back and I did put on pairs of rented skates for first time. I did not have those helpers. I still call them walkers on wheels. Without that, I pushed myself and made it to skate so well by 3rd week which was already first weekend of April. And started to ask the girls to skate. Couple skates that is.
I was so much interested in their Blue and Green and White colors at Empire Skates in Dewitt. And how they designed the place.
Sadly Empire closed with averaging 7 people per night. I counted. But I did not stop skating.
However, that graduating year of 1983 in the month of June two major changes impacted us youths at the time: Empire Skates East was closing on the Erie Boulevard East in DeWitt and just next block real close was the number 27th McDonalds that they secretly torn down ignoring Henry Ford Museum's wish to purchase the old iconic double Golden Arches Salt-Box restaurant. (good news that the museum learned lesson quickly and bought another McD for their museum collection.)
I took architecture drawings and mechanical drawings (drafting) in high school and I was highest graded in school history with average of 97. Thanks Mr. Buell!
At vocational school I took Architectural drawing course and earned certificate that I can design my own house or some places simple. I continue to do drafting or drawings related to architecture. I even did murals.
This is why and where I fits in here at Dead-Rinks that I combined my passion in roller skating, architectural design, mural paintings I have done, and even worked at Sports-O-Rama Roller Rink in 1990 to 1991. I left because I got better paying job and full time at a bank processing center only they closed three or so months later.
With combined experience in design, drafting, CAD drafting, mural painting, working in retail, and worked at a roller rink, plus experience in roller skating and learned from one of my friends who long since passed away. His name was Tom who owned Empire Skates West Rebooted (Baldwinsville, NY) on "Operating Roller Rink Business 101."
Now, you wanted to know how I do this as a couple of you asked and I am sure you too have asked.
The Process: Stage One-RETRIEVING lists.
First step on how I got your favorite rinks on the list was that I use the lists of different resources online as my foundation to retrieve list of rinks. Most you saw are normally more recent times say, past 75 years in post-Billboard Magazine Rinks section era. The lists I copied and pasted the names of the rinks, along with address number, street, city, and state.
The lists I retrieved are: International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation© Seen one name of rink off the net and added as blue or already profiled. The others are Forgotten Roller Rinks of the Past, a2zyp.com/Skating+Rinks, George's list on Google that was posted in 1996, Skating Center USA that was from 1990s, Video Paradise, and Skating Fitness. Those are the main sites I used. When I finish all 50 states, I will go ahead with older rinks to go further back--the Billboard and Variety Magazines. Also from skaters like you!
Since I am not earing a dime from you, my dear fans, or the click baits through advertising. I do not even have a YouTube to earn money from it, I am unable to do newspaper research because newspaper websites want your money. (Hello, have they forgotten about their advertisements revenues from clicks, oh right, we all avoid that click baits! Haha). So, um.. you would do the same with me to avoid ads. Although I would love advertisers pay for a space. on my site to help me pay to read old newspapers. And membership to the RSAI and Roller Skating Museum. They would be a huge help to have me access to add more rinks! And more info. (Would you consider to help me? Ask me in my email, [email protected])
I copied and pasted onto my MS Word, all in plain text so it can appear normal on my MS Word. Each list works like this. Based on Georgia and New Mexico Roller Rinks list I worked on. I will post rinks soon when I organize by properly listed without current rinks AND with geographically correct sections (North, South, and major city, etc). Here is step one I use. Since I have nothing on New Mexico for now, let's use Georgia for now which I am actually working on this month. This is from my original site, Dead Rinks. See some of the rinks listed in Georgia. The Blue font is name of state. Orange is section. (Yes, I know, they are a local college color but I like them). The Black fonts means I got information but nothing direct from owners, or fans like you or something. It is underlined which means they are clickable. Click in the real page, please to get idea what they are like. The Blue fonts means newly added which I will be working on. They are dead rinks alright. Reason they are not green because that means I got the information and is clickable. See the figure A below.
The lists I retrieved are: International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation© Seen one name of rink off the net and added as blue or already profiled. The others are Forgotten Roller Rinks of the Past, a2zyp.com/Skating+Rinks, George's list on Google that was posted in 1996, Skating Center USA that was from 1990s, Video Paradise, and Skating Fitness. Those are the main sites I used. When I finish all 50 states, I will go ahead with older rinks to go further back--the Billboard and Variety Magazines. Also from skaters like you!
Since I am not earing a dime from you, my dear fans, or the click baits through advertising. I do not even have a YouTube to earn money from it, I am unable to do newspaper research because newspaper websites want your money. (Hello, have they forgotten about their advertisements revenues from clicks, oh right, we all avoid that click baits! Haha). So, um.. you would do the same with me to avoid ads. Although I would love advertisers pay for a space. on my site to help me pay to read old newspapers. And membership to the RSAI and Roller Skating Museum. They would be a huge help to have me access to add more rinks! And more info. (Would you consider to help me? Ask me in my email, [email protected])
I copied and pasted onto my MS Word, all in plain text so it can appear normal on my MS Word. Each list works like this. Based on Georgia and New Mexico Roller Rinks list I worked on. I will post rinks soon when I organize by properly listed without current rinks AND with geographically correct sections (North, South, and major city, etc). Here is step one I use. Since I have nothing on New Mexico for now, let's use Georgia for now which I am actually working on this month. This is from my original site, Dead Rinks. See some of the rinks listed in Georgia. The Blue font is name of state. Orange is section. (Yes, I know, they are a local college color but I like them). The Black fonts means I got information but nothing direct from owners, or fans like you or something. It is underlined which means they are clickable. Click in the real page, please to get idea what they are like. The Blue fonts means newly added which I will be working on. They are dead rinks alright. Reason they are not green because that means I got the information and is clickable. See the figure A below.
Next step I do is to gather the list of all dead rinks from my page. See Figure B below. I used Georgia list for now because New Mexico is not on the list.
After I click them and open their website pages, I copied the names. Yes, I did copy and paste onto my MS Word so I can start sorting them. The list is raw which is in this figure C. You will see it was pasted exactly as it was on their websites which has different format of setting up their catalogs of rinks. The list in figure C are on my MS Word in raw format.
I apologized that you are unable to read this. This is raw list page examples of how the layout came out when I pasted it. It will redefined when completed. And in format exactly how I will copy and paste onto the website. That list in raw ended up with 11 pages before I add one more section. The Alphabetically ordered list section on MS Word. You can see the lines were spaced, zip codes and phone numbers were still on that raw list. You will still see that on their websites anyhow. I eliminate zip codes and phone numbers to save space but they are not in business anymore so there are no way for you to make a call. Those numbers are already recycled to next phone number owner so please respect by not calling anyone. You can call roller rinks that are still in operational though. See next figure below about how it is organized:
As you can see the list above showed more finished and more fancier and better to read as it willbe something like that on the final section-the alphabetically order. This section showed each link's list I found. In this case, FRRP did not have any but I found tons of them. This shows I am ahead of that competitor. IRSRHF is really truly dedicated website that is made grown EVERY DAY! Red font I put there because on Skating Fitness list showed that specific rink is closed. It says "--CLOSED--" on the list under the name of the rink. So, I turned it to red already. Skating Fitness truly helps me quicker. Next one you will see it shows in red the "Alphabet order" It is already in alphabetically But to understand how I would go about it. You will see some rinks are already dead rinks but some are not.. you will see the final product of list at bottom of this page. Eventually you will see it is on Dead Rinks US Rinks list.
You can see it is alphabetically order. No colors yet. After seeing this list, I rolled down and saw many duplicated names because I got list off of other websites. Here are the list of duplicates:
This truly helps me verified the list off of each other. Next is to reduce those lists by eliminating duplicates.
You will notice some rinks I leave it alone because I needed to verify their address. One list I get says this street number but another list says other wise so it draws a conflict. In fact, it did showed that conflict rarely as I go through actual list. Which one? Sometimes they actually did move. Yes, there are rinks that moved locations because they ran out of lease or owner did not want a rink anymore, whatever the reason. That is why you see street numbers on two of the same rink and same street. One rink I found in GA earlier today showed address directed to a house in middle of the forest! Wrong street number. So, I eventually found it which is about 10 blocks away into more of a suburb area and has a name of the rink on its sign. It might have been a error OR owner's home just happened to be on same street but different block! You can see the Skateway USA addresses are different above.
This one above, showed a section of the alphabetical order list. See the first and last in that photo showed two different colors showing different purposes. First one in blue which showed blue means cold.. ice. Right? Yes, that rink happened to be an ice rink called, Outpost Ice Arena so that is marked with ice blue fonts to match its description. That rink is not listed with International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation©, because the website is all about ROLLER skating rinks, not ice.
The bottom one showed it is green means the same as traffic signal meaning motorists can be alive by driving cross the intersection now. This means it is operational. By researching its name, this is the result I found online that this specific nice looking rink is still operational although it says "Temporarily Closed" because of COVID global lockdown which occurred in early 2020 (mind you, I am writing like a reader in 2040 will read this.) That is taken from Google Search.
The bottom one showed it is green means the same as traffic signal meaning motorists can be alive by driving cross the intersection now. This means it is operational. By researching its name, this is the result I found online that this specific nice looking rink is still operational although it says "Temporarily Closed" because of COVID global lockdown which occurred in early 2020 (mind you, I am writing like a reader in 2040 will read this.) That is taken from Google Search.
Because Rollerena Skating Rink is still operational, it turns green so I turn to the next one that I wanted to show you in red.
The same section as you seen earlier. This time I am showing you that Rainbow Garden Roller drome has closed because I searched for that one and came up with a couple of many examples on same Google search. See search result here:
Because I found those two information, I also found more and will add eventually. When the list is done, I go back to that. But those rinks with red font AND yellow highlighter on the words means there are no information at all. Only found sources listing that rink. No articles, no business records, no real estate, none of that.
Speaking of real estate, I do check list of former rinks or rinks that are for sale and the are listed as for sale because they could get sold to new owners who might want to get rid of rinks which is much sad news about it.
When the list is done, I go head and post on US Rinks list. And then work the list with red fonts like this dead rink I mentioned and you will be able to read the commentary I write on those rinks based on articles, the photos I see how cool that place is or what I did not like seeing. Like a food critic. I act like a skating rink critic to explain the uniqueness of those former skating rinks or rinks prior to current rinks. I do check Alive rinks as well because they are in business and I make commentaries for my site, for Yelp, and Trip Advisor. Please check Alive Rinks page to see what that is all about. Again, with no money, I am unable to take a trip to many out of state or town skating rinks for me to experience those rinks as well as checking out former rinks locations.
Those rinks with blue fonts and green fonts ON MS Word are eliminated from posting on Dead-Rinks because they are both ice rinks and alive respectively.
I would love volunteers to work on Rinks with me and make the lists and do alphabetically order and check to see if they are alive or dead rinks. If you are not sure, you can always call the rinks to see if they are operational or not. And I will post the list and start working on those dead rinks and go from there.
The color codes are different on MS Word and on International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation©,. The yellow highlights are not function-able on my website. They are red fonts. Green on Dead Rinks means they are still dead but you can go ahead and read more information and what I received from fans like you! Without fans or previous owners, I put them on black fonts.
© Copyrighted by International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation©, an International Commercial Archeology Preservation© Group. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:3 to 16. Deut. 32:7.
Speaking of real estate, I do check list of former rinks or rinks that are for sale and the are listed as for sale because they could get sold to new owners who might want to get rid of rinks which is much sad news about it.
When the list is done, I go head and post on US Rinks list. And then work the list with red fonts like this dead rink I mentioned and you will be able to read the commentary I write on those rinks based on articles, the photos I see how cool that place is or what I did not like seeing. Like a food critic. I act like a skating rink critic to explain the uniqueness of those former skating rinks or rinks prior to current rinks. I do check Alive rinks as well because they are in business and I make commentaries for my site, for Yelp, and Trip Advisor. Please check Alive Rinks page to see what that is all about. Again, with no money, I am unable to take a trip to many out of state or town skating rinks for me to experience those rinks as well as checking out former rinks locations.
Those rinks with blue fonts and green fonts ON MS Word are eliminated from posting on Dead-Rinks because they are both ice rinks and alive respectively.
I would love volunteers to work on Rinks with me and make the lists and do alphabetically order and check to see if they are alive or dead rinks. If you are not sure, you can always call the rinks to see if they are operational or not. And I will post the list and start working on those dead rinks and go from there.
The color codes are different on MS Word and on International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation©,. The yellow highlights are not function-able on my website. They are red fonts. Green on Dead Rinks means they are still dead but you can go ahead and read more information and what I received from fans like you! Without fans or previous owners, I put them on black fonts.
© Copyrighted by International Roller Skating Rinks History Foundation©, an International Commercial Archeology Preservation© Group. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:3 to 16. Deut. 32:7.