Cheap Skate


With holiday decorations already popping up and the Winter Olympics (to take place in Vancouver) coming up in February, we’ve got winter sports on the mind. Of course, we’re still a ways away from getting enough snow for serious sledding. And skiing options are slim and too expensive. So what does that leave us? Skating. There are plenty of skating rinks opening this month around the city (bypass Rockefeller Center’s rink—unless you have visitors from out of town), including the Wollman Rinks in Manhattan’s Central Park  and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, uptown’s Riverbank State Park, on over to Staten Island’s War Memorial Skating Park. One of the best rinks is at Chelsea Piers, but that’ll cost you $13 just to get in, which is much more than the standard $5 admission at those other rinks. So what we’d recommend for a cheap skate is to head over to the middle of Manhattan, to the Pond at Bryant Park skating rink (at 6th avenue, between 40th and 42nd streets), where admission is. . . free! (And so are the lockers.) Renting skates costs $12, so if you have your own, take them so that you and the kids can spend an afternoon slip sliding away without ever digging into your wallet. Of course, that should free up a couple bucks for the hot chocolate that’s tempting you from the nearby Ice Bites concession stand.