BY SUE M. MORGAN
Staff Writer
EATONTOWN — Contrary to rumor, the Eatontown Roller Rink will remain open for roller skating for the rest of 2005 and maybe even 2006, according to the rink’s manager.
Upon entering the nearly 33-year-old rink on a Sunday afternoon during a public session, one will find children skating along the shining, oblong-shaped hardwood floor as party music from Kool and The Gang and K.C. and the Sunshine Band and other musicians of the disco era plays overhead.
Some of the skaters roll along skillfully, while others rock slightly as they struggle to maintain their balance by stretching out their arms. Floor supervisors and some parents and other adults skate around the children, ready to lend a hand or help the less-experienced skaters find their balance.
PHOTOS BY SEAN BRADY Above left, a sign in the lobby of the Eatontown Roller Rink states it will remain in business through 2006. Above right, Michelle and Peter Marrucca, of Neptune, rent skates from Ryan Maguire. True, business at the longtime Route 35 landmark is not rocking and rolling like it did back in the skating heyday of the 1970s and early 1980s, but rink operator Richard Jones believes that the weekend offerings of roller hockey, public skating and birthday parties will be enough to help the operation stay afloat.
With computer games, the Internet, and free outdoor skate parks now available in many towns, children’s recreational interests have changed, Jones acknowledges.
Jones sold his interest in the rink operation to an Ocean Township investment group 18 months ago, but unless the town finds something to replace the 23,000-square-foot roller rink, he can’t think of any reason to close up shop.
Until the borough’s Planning Board or Zoning Board of Adjustment formally approves a site plan and grants any needed variances for a new occupant on the property, the skating operation will roll on, he said.
“I’m optimistic that we’re going to remain here for at least six months to two years,” Jones said. “A lot of things have to happen before the roller rink closes, the main thing being some type of approval by the planning or zoning board.”
When that happens, Jones plans to hang a sign on the outside door that says: “No skating anymore. Rink closed. Thanks for the memories. Gone fishing.”
Those words are at the end of a printed notice posted inside the building’s foyer. In the same notice, Jones explains that skating will continue into 2006 and “maybe into 2007.”
More prominently, on another wall, another notice reads, “We are not closing anytime in the near future.”
In short, through those signs, Jones wants everyone to know he is not going anywhere now.
“There will be plenty of notice and a big sign on the highway will proclaim when there are just a couple of months left and the countdown will begin,” one notice reads.
The land that the rink and its parking lot occupy, though formerly zoned for light manufacturing use, is now zoned for retail/commercial use, according to Peggy Ciok of Eatontown’s planning and zoning office.
An application has been submitted to the borough for a strip shopping center by the property owner, Site Management Inc. of Oakhurst, the entity that purchased Jones’ interest as well as that of the Elizabeth-based co-owner, America on Wheels Inc., in July 2002.
However, that application is on hold pending the applicant’s contribution to the borough’s Council on Affordable Housing (COAH) trust fund, Ciok explained. The exact amount of that contribution has yet to be negotiated between the borough and the applicant, she said.
The property’s future is somewhat dependent upon the success of the Lowe’s Home Improvement Center now under construction across Route 35 on the site of the former Bendix plant, Jones said.
“It makes a great retail space,” he said.
A rink such as that in Eatontown usually measures 20,000 to 25,000 square feet, which is generally the space needed by a single retailer such as a department store or a small strip mall, Jones said.
The building that now houses the rink was originally an A&P supermarket before its owner sold it in the early 1970s to America on Wheels, a company that once owned and operated numerous rinks throughout the country.
America on Wheels then converted it to a skating rink and opened it amid much fanfare in June 1973, said Jones, who first took a job at the Eatontown operation four years later.
Pipe organ music, which originally played overhead as skaters filled the rink’s perimeter, was soon replaced by disco music, which was all the rage by the late 1970s. Still, skating went on, just to a different, syncopated disco beat.
A mirrored disco ball bordered by colored lights still remains centered above the rink. Jones keeps the ball there except during roller hockey sessions.
On many nights in the 1970s and early 1980s, it was not unusual to see large crowds of roller skaters at the rink, whether on the floor, at the snack bar, or playing pinball machines on a Friday or Saturday night, Jones said.
“Cars would be lined up with parents dropping their kids off,” Jones recalled. “People had this feeling that they were dropping their children off into this controlled environment.”
Tricia Green, an Eatontown native who skated at the rink on most Friday nights as a teenager in the 1970s and who now brings her own children to skate, vividly remembers those times.
“[People] would line up outside, and the line would go around the side of the building” before the rink opened for the night, Green said as she visited the rink on Sunday.
At one time, Green almost joined the rink’s speed skating team, but after watching the team’s daring moves, decided it was not for her.
Still, Green has fond memories and is glad her sons will be able to experience what she herself enjoyed so much as a child.
“It would be nice if they would stay here for a little while longer,” she said.
Bill Kirk of Farmingdale, another regular on Sunday nights during the 1970s, returned to the rink for the weekend public skating about two years ago, this time with his children.
Kirk, who owns Kirk’s Florist in Farmingdale, is drawn to the Eatontown rink because he is allowed to skate backwards there.
“None of the other local rinks let you skate backwards,” Kirk said. “I like to dance and skate around.”
Middletown-based rocker Jon Bon Jovi has skated with his own children at the rink and even held his son’s birthday party there in 2003, Jones said. A photo of the rock star and his son hangs inside the foyer.
No open public skating is available on weekend nights now, although the rink is available for private parties on Saturday nights. Jones attributes the decline in interest in roller skating to the availability of computer games and less strenuous activities.
“Kids don’t do today what they did back then,” Jones said. “Roller skating was an activity that they did as a form of exercise. Kids are more lethargic now.”
Though skateboarding and in-line skating have almost replaced regular roller skating at the rink, Jones also believes that the availability of outdoor skate parks has hurt the indoor roller rink industry. Add to that, too, that children prefer to listen to their own compact discs on headphones while they skate.
“Why go inside and pay for a place to skate when you can go outside for free?” Jones said. “We’re the last roller rink in Monmouth County.”
Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the building and children are supervised at all times, Jones said. The floor was recently refinished and new carpeting has been installed outside the rink area, he added.
“It’s a nice environment,” Jones said. “We never have any problems here.”
Birthday parties are still a mainstay of the weekend business when the rink is open for public skating from 2:30 to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and 2:30 to 5 p.m. on Sundays.
Skateboarding, complete with ramps, is available on Fridays from 9 p.m. to midnight.