City of Evanston Blog
Outdoor Ice Rinks Update
From Director of Parks/Forestry, Recreation and Facilities Management Doug Gaynor:
"During the past few days staff in our department received inquiries about the outdoor ice rinks and I thought it would be good to share this information:
Making Ice Outdoor Ice Rinks
It takes about three consecutive days of temperatures 15 degrees or lower to have sufficient frost penetration of the ground. It then takes at least six days of applying water to have ice thick enough to skate upon. A WARM SPELL DISRUPTS THE ICE-MAKING PROCESS, which has occurred and is predicted for later this week. In addition, when it snows, crews who are assigned to making ice are shifted to snow removal duties at City buildings, sidewalks and parking lots. Not having staff available to make ice adds additional days to the ice making process. The heavy snowfall last week slowed the process of creating ice at all the rink locations. Additionally, hydrants were frozen at two locations last week. They needed to be thawed by the Water Department’s employees, which again slowed the process. Finally, work is also done within existing employee work hours; there is no overtime, adjustment in employee work hours or any type of additional expense for employees allowed.
Rink Locations
Ackerman Park, Central St. at McDaniel; the Dawes Park Lagoon, Sheridan Rd. at Church St.; Larimer Park, north of Crain St. at Oak Ave.; Bent Park, Central St. at Cowper; Baker Park, Forest Ave. at Keeney St.; and the former Kendall College site at Sherman Ave. at Lincoln St.
(Non-City owned Rink Locations)
Ridgeville Park District has an outdoor rink at Kamen Park.
Supervision/Field Houses and Lights
Please be aware that there are no attendants on duty to supervise rinks, shelter houses will not be open and lights will not be turned on. Maintenance including snow removal is a low priority.
Outdoor Ice Rink Season
The outdoor season traditionally lasts until mid-February. With the uncertainty of the weather we experience an annual average of 14 days for skating.
Hotline Updates
For a recorded message regarding outdoor ice rink conditions, please call 847/859-7822, ext. 8.
Current Status of the Ice Rinks
Baker Park has good skatable ice
Larimer Park has good skatable ice
Ackerman has ice (okay condition)
Lagoon has ice ---very bumpy and has some snow cover
Bent—no ice ---only a base exists at this location
Kendall—no ice—only a base exists at this location
Department staff will continue to work on creating rinks at the locations as time permits and weather allows."
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3 Comments
Larry, that's how outdoor ice is made in parks. I learned to skate on such an "unskatable" rink when I was a kid and didn't think anything of it. But sure, cut outdoor skating and give kids even less to do during the winter. The same happened in my home town 15 years ago, and the poor kids were left with nothing to do in the neighborhood.
January 31, 2010 10:34 AM
Looking to find an outdoor ice skating area. It's been pretty cold. Any updates? (thank you for this blog post - it's useful and the information much appreciated!!)
December 21, 2010 11:01 AM
I strongly disagree with Doug Gaynor's assertion that the "ice rink" in Larimer Park has good skatable ice ! Perhaps he'd care to demonstrate just how skatable the ice is ? I'm not holding my breath on that. If you consider ice skatable that's covered from end to end, side to side, with large ridges, mounds, moguls of ICE, & generally supremely bumpy and hazardous overall --- then I'm Evanston's Olympic speedskater Shani Davis (I'm not !). I've seen the ice in the other parks, just as bad, 'nuff said.
These poor ice conditions can't simply be sluffed off as due to weather occurrences. The responsibility lies directly at the feet of Mr. Gaynor, and the less than competent work of his Parks/Forestry, Recreation crews. You can NOT flood a park for skating by "shooting" water from a FIRE hose 15 to 20 feet UP in the air, and expect to have skatable ice !! The unavoidable result will always be that ice covered with large ridges, mounds, bumps etc. It never used to be that way, but I suppose those who knew what they were doing, took advantage of the recent early retirement program.
So why don't we just end the fallacy right now of outdoor ice skating in Evanston. Very poor to worse than very poor ice surfaces, shelter houses closed, lights turned off, no attendants on duty, low priority --- outdoor skating is just a sham (again, it never used to be that way !). Unfortunately, eliminating outdoor skating probably wouldn't save much re the current budget crisis, since there's no overtime or other adjustment of employee work hours allowed. But then again, who's keeping tabs on the amount/cost of the water used in bungled efforts ?
January 15, 2010 3:04 PM