Chicago Rink Rats: The Roller Capital in Its Heyday

Chicago Rink Rats: The Roller Capital in Its Heyday

Author: Tom Russo

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1625859686

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By 1950, roller skating had emerged as the number-one participatory sport in America. Ironically, the war years launched the Golden Age of Roller Skating. Soldiers serving overseas pleaded for skates along with their usual requests for cigarettes and letters from home. Stateside, skating uplifted morale and kept war factory workers exercising. By the end of the decade, five thousand rinks operated across the country. Its epicenter: Chicago! And no one was left behind! The Blink Bats, a group of Braille Center skaters, held their own at the huge Broadway Armory rink. Meanwhile, the Swank drew South Side crowds to its knee-action floor and stocked jukebox. Eighteen celebrated rinks are now gone, but rinks that remain honor the traditions of the sport's glory years. Author Tom Russo scoured newspaper archives and interviewed skaters of the roller capital's heyday to reveal the enduring legacy of Chicago's rink rats.


My Omaha Obsession

My Omaha Obsession

Author: Miss Cassette

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2020-11

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 149622471X

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My Omaha Obsession takes the reader on an idiosyncratic tour through some of Omaha’s neighborhoods, buildings, architecture, and people, celebrating the city’s unusual history. Rather than covering the city’s best-known sites, Miss Cassette is irresistibly drawn to strange little buildings and glorious large homes that don’t exist anymore as well as to stories of Harkert’s Holsum Hamburgers and the Twenties Club. Piecing together the records of buildings and homes and everything interesting that came after, Miss Cassette shares her observations of the property and its significance to Omaha. She scrutinizes land deeds, insurance maps, tax records, and old newspaper articles to uncover a property’s singular story. Through conversations with fellow detectives and history enthusiasts, she guides readers along her path of hunches, personal interests, mishaps, and more. As a longtime resident of Omaha, Miss Cassette is informed by memories of her youth combined with an enduring curiosity about the city’s offbeat relics and remains. Part memoir and part research guide with a healthy dose of colorful wandering, My Omaha Obsession celebrates the historic built environment and searches for the people who shaped early Omaha.


Shot in Soho

Shot in Soho

Author: Karen McQuaid (Photographer)

Publisher: Prestel Publishing

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783791358895

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A visual exploration of London's most intriguing square mile captures Soho's essence--from seedy to sublime, and everything in between. During a time of development and change that has the potential to transform the unique character of London's Soho, this book delves into the area's storied past as a place of disobedience and eccentricity. Opening with a look at Soho through the years, this book includes archival images of Suffragettes learning Jiu-jitsu in a Soho gym, David Bowie preparing to record at Trident Studios, and Francis Bacon drinking at the French House. The book then presents the work of photographers who have shed light on Soho's many faces through the decades, including Kelvin Brodie, Clancy Gebler Davies, Corinne Day, William Klein, and Anders Petersen. Also featured is a new series of work by young, up-and-coming photographer Daragh Soden, whose images were specially commissioned by The Photographers' Gallery for this project. These streetscapes and portraits are by turns intimate and haunting, visceral and vibrant, nostalgic and provocative. Throughout the volume, texts narrate a social history marked by subculture and controversy. This book captures Soho as a refuge for marginalized, pioneering, and unconventional people.


Chicago Roller Skating Rink Directory

Chicago Roller Skating Rink Directory

Author: Marcie Hill

Publisher:

Published: 2020-01-13

Total Pages: 148

ISBN-13: 9781659981971

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Chicago is truly the roller skate capitol. Home to hundreds of places where people roller skated, most of which are unknown, this book lists the names of roller skating rinks, community centers, schools, churches and other places where Chicagoans skated.


Better Roller Skating for Boys and Girls

Better Roller Skating for Boys and Girls

Author: George Sullivan

Publisher: Dodd Mead

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13: 9780396077848

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Discusses the history, equipment, and techniques of various types of roller skating including recreational skating, speed skating, roller skate dancing, and roller skate hockey.