About the Empire Skate Club / FAQ

Q. Who are we?
Q. What do we do?
Q. What are our social skates like?
Q. Do I need to be a good skater?
Q. Who runs the club?
Q. How else can I help?
Q. Do we give skating lessons?
Q. How long has the Empire Skate Club been around?
Q. How long has Empire Speen been around?
Q. When did the Big Apple Roll begin?
Q. Is Empire the oldest inline/roller skate club in New York City?

Q. Who are we?
A. The Empire Skate Club of New York is a non-profit organization of inline skaters dedicated to having fun and bringing the New York City inline skating community closer together.

Q. What do we do?
A. We organize social skates and get-togethers in the city, trips around the eastern seaboard and farther afield, clinics, seminars, parties and skate advocacy.

Q. What are our social skates like?
A. They fall into different categories:

We organize weekend group skates of varying lengths around the city, and sometimes in the suburbs outside the city. Some of these are casual skates around Manhattan, others can be long skates to outlying parts of town (Rockaway) or out-of-town (Sleepy Hollow), while others are somewhere in between. Most group skates will maintain a pace that is suitable for intermediate skaters. More info is on the weekend skates page and on the Calendar.

Our oldest event — older than the club itself — is the Tuesday Night Skate (TNS), a weeknight group skate that meets year-round, weather permitting. TNS is intended for experienced skaters who want to enjoy the thrills of skating in and around the city after dark. It can be an intense workout. More info is available on the TNS webpage.

Our biggest group skate, however, occurs during the Big Apple Roll, a four-day weekend of skating festivities at the start of August. More than 600 skaters participated in the BAR Friday Night Skate in 2025.

There are also opportunities for weekend trips to other East Coast cities to enjoy a few days of skating led by members of other inline skating clubs. Links to some of these events are available on the road trips page as well as in the Calendar. These events are much like Big Apple Roll.

Q. Do I need to be a good skater?
A.  Empire hosts events for different skill levels. Some will be suitable for relatively new skaters. However, most group skates are intended for people who have skated a bit and require that you be experienced skating on city streets when there is traffic. We try to indicate on the Calendar and on the Empire Facebook page how long skates will be and what skill level is required.

Q. Who runs the club?
A. As a non-profit organization we have a board of directors that gives the club its overall direction, while volunteers organize the club's activities (group skates, Big Apple Roll, Empire Speed, etc.). See the contacts page for information on contacting the officers and committees.

Q. How else can I help?
A. Again, see the contacts page for information on contacting us. Also, you can post questions to our Empire Facebook page.

Q. Do we give skating lessons?
A. No, The Empire Skate Club doesn't offer skating lessons. Many of our skaters are certified skate instructors, and you can find them by using the Skate Instructors Association instructor search webpage. Our friends in the Central Park Skate Patrol offer free braking clinics for new skaters during summer Saturday afternoons in Central Park and run a skate school for skaters looking for further instruction.

Q. How long has the Empire Skate Club been around?
A. Empire formed in spring 1997. This came in response to the demise of the New York Road Skaters Association. NYRSA hosted many major events in the early 1990s, got into debt, hosted few if any events in 1996, and then quietly disappeared. Skaters Gary Roth and Michael Stern began talking to other city inline skaters in winter 1997 about what they wanted in a skate club, and by spring the Empire Skate Club of New York had established an on-line presence. The first noteworthy club-organized event was probably a weekend group skate to Coney Island in June 1997 to see the Mermaid Parade.

Q. How long has Empire Speed been around?
A. Empire Speed formed very quickly after the Empire Skate Club became an official organization. NYC speed and fitness skaters realized that becoming part of an existing group would make it easier to attract sponsors and otherwise organize a speed team. Most of the preliminary work was accomplished by Elizabeth Atwater and Elizabeth Seward. Once the group formed, training sessions and informal races were organized by Max Ivenitsky, who later became leader of Empire Speed.

Q. When did the Big Apple Roll begin?
A. The first Big Apple Roll was held in 2003. The date moved around over the next several years, ranging from the end of July to the late August, but finally settled on the first weekend of August in 2010. It was originally a three-day event, with no group skates on Thursday scheduled until 2010. At the end of the 1990s, before BAR came into being, the Empire Skate Club organized the Liberty Skate Weekend in early June, when it would coincide with the MS Super Roll charity skate.

Q. Is Empire the oldest inline/roller skate club in New York City?
A. No, there are three or four skate groups (of various degrees of organization) in the city that are older than Empire.
1. The Central Park Dance Skaters have been rolling since (probably) the 1970s, but they did not formally organize until 1994.
2. The Tuesday Night Skate began rolling in 1989, originally as a NYRSA event.
3. The Central Park Skate Patrol formed in 1992.
4. The Wednesday Night Skate began rolling in either 1996 or 2001, depending on who you ask. It is either the successor or the replacement of a group called Blade Night Manhattan that rolled from 1996 through 2000.

---