The New York City Inline Skating Guide
Clubs and Leagues: Recreation and Dance

Following is a listing and brief comments about various area clubs which are interested in the rec/fitness, speed and dance aspects of inline skating.

Group Skate!

There are separate pages for roller hockey and speedskating clubs.

There is also a separate listing of group skates, even those which are organized by clubs listed below.

Belmar Skate Group

Belmar, NJ

Web: www.belmarskatinggroup.com

Group skate on the Jersey shore.

Central Park Dance Skaters Association (CPDSA)

14 Washington Place #11F, New York, NY 10003; (212) 760-4848

Web: www.cpdsa.org

A union of inline and quad skaters with a common goal, the CPDSA was originally organized to fight the 1995 ban on amplified music in Central Park's dance skating area. Now, in cooperation with the Parks Department, they set up a sophisticated sound system and play music for quad and inline dance skaters on the Dead Road on weekend afternoons from mid-April through October.

Central Park Skate Patrol

PO Box 20416, New York, NY 10025

Web: www.skatepatrol.org

E-mail: president@skatepatrol.org

Perhaps the oldest formally organized skate organization in the city, formed in the early 1990s and for a time part of NYRSA. They are a volunteer group who provide free stopping clinics in Central Park on weekend afternoons April through October and may tour the park loop looking for skaters and other park users in trouble.

Empire Skate Club of New York

P.O. Box 20070, London Terrace Station, New York, NY 10011; (212) 774-1774

Web: www.empireskate.org

E-mail: empire@empireskate.org

Skating organization formed in early 1997 to replace the defunct NYRSA (see below). It primarily serves recreational, fitness and speed skaters, with group skates, skate tours, monthly newsletter, clinics, and discounts at several city skate merchants. The club's highlight activity is a weekend-long group skate event, formerly known as the Liberty Skate Weekend but now called the Big Apple Roll. Empire also has a major speedskating segment called Empire Speed.

Long Island Road and Track Skating Association (LIRTSA)

P.O. Box 1971, North Massapequa, New York 11758; 516-873-8371

Web: www.hoflink.com/~nmason/lirtsa/lirtsa.html

Group in Nassau County out on the Island who used to organize races. They no longer do so, but do seem to be still organizing regular weekend clinics and twice a week group skates.

Metropolitan Manhattan Skate Club

Web: www.ngos.net/mmsc

Supposedly the oldest roller group in the city, established in 1978, but they were so quiet in the 1990s that I was never really sure they really existed. Then in 2004 or 2005 came word that they were still around. They are pretty much an adult roller dance group.

New York Road Skaters Association (NYRSA)

No longer exists. NYRSA was the NYC inline organization in the early 1990s. The organization was seriously in the red in late 1995 and quietly went "out of business" sometime the next year.