Roll-A-Palace
1728 Sheepshead Bay Road | also 1722 Sheepshead Bay Road, 1726 Sheepshead Bay Road, 1724 Sheepshead Bay Road | Sheepshead Bay | built 1927
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1929
The Sheepshead Bay Century Circuit Theater opens on Sheepshead Bay Road with a Kimball organ
The theater opened on July 12, 1929, with a Kimball theater organ and a Western Electric sound system. Architect Thomas R. Short gave it what was then called a pronounced Modernist style, with an oval lounge designed for women patrons. In 1943 it passed to the Rugoff & Becker chain and later to Century Theatres, which operated it until it closed in 1970.
“The Sheepshead Bay Century Circuit Theater opened on July 12, 1929. It featured a Kimball International theater organ and a Western Electric sound system.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1977
The city approves turning the shuttered Sheepshead Bay movie theater into a skating rink
New York's Board of Standards and Appeals approved enlarging the old theater and converting it to a skating rink on May 3, 1977. A million-dollar renovation followed, and the Roll-A-Palace Disco Skating Rink opened that year. By 1978 it was promoted as a family place with a no-dungarees rule.
“On May 3, 1977, New York's Board of Standards and Appeals approved the theater structure's enlargement and its "conversion into a skating rink with accessory uses".”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1978
Future house DJ Frankie Bones skates at the rink for the first time
Frankie Bones, who became a house DJ, has said he learned to skate at Roll-A-Palace as a child. After his first visit, on May 11, 1978, he went home and typed up his own Hot 100 record chart, putting I Can't Stand the Rain, in the version by The Eruptions, at number one. Lenny Dee, another DJ, began his career at the rink around 1985, at age 17.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1979
Roll-A-Palace and WKTU launch the Disco Dip, considered the first dance written for roller disco
In January 1979 the rink teamed up with disco radio station WKTU to promote a song and dance called the Disco Dip, written by Ed Chaplin. The rink hosted the song's debut party and a series of Disco Dip nights. That year Cue magazine called it the front-runner of the roller-disco craze, and at its height it drew over 5,000 customers a weekend.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1987
The rink gets a variance to become a Jack LaLanne health club
On May 5, 1987, the Board of Standards and Appeals granted a variance for converting the skating rink into a Jack LaLanne Health Club. By 1996 the space was Bally Total Fitness, whose conditions local community members later considered unfavorable. It became a 24 Hour Fitness in 2015 and a Synergy Fitness around 2022, which closed in 2024.
“On May 5, 1987, New York's Board of Standards and Appeals granted a variance to approve the skating rink's conversion to a Jack LaLanne Health Club.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Roll-A-PalaceWikipedia
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