The Uptown building that until recently housed the Rainbo roller rink has always been a “community magnet for entertainment,” says David Bahlman of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois. In the days before air-conditioning, people congregated in the picnic groves and outdoor beer gardens that used to cover the two-plus-acre site, on Clark Street just north of Lawrence. The building, constructed in several stages and completed in 1928, has had many incarnations over the years, among them a movie theater, a bowling alley, and an ice rink. It’s also served as a venue for everything from jai alai games to wrestling matches, raves to dog shows, big-band performances to rock concerts. Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin played there in 1969 when it housed the Kinetic Playground. In the 70s it became a roller rink.
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The rink closed at the end of March, and roller-skating enthusiast Edith Frost eulogized the Rainbo on her weblog, writing, “They had a good wood floor and it was the only skating rink I’d ever been to that allowed skating while drinking. It was also the only one I’d ever seen that had two levels of skating: the main floor downstairs and another little floor upstairs by the bar.”
“It’s actually a number of buildings taped together” over the years in a “hodgepodge of styles,” he says. Though he understands the building may have sentimental value for some people–he says he used to go ice-skating there with his grandfather–he’s not sure sentimental “is the thing to preserve.”
The developer on this project, Paul Hardej of Metropolitan Development Enterprises, Inc., insists demolition isn’t imminent–or even a foregone conclusion. Hardej says the partners are still “in the early stages of planning” and haven’t yet made a final decision as to whether the complex will call for the building’s destruction. And he denies that he timed they permit application to avoid being bound by the terms of the new ordinance. Rather, he says, they were trying to avoid a beginning-of-the-year fee hike on demolition permits. But according to a spokesperson for the Department of Construction and Permits, no such fee hike was made.
