The Culver City Ice Rink was awarded high cultural status unanimously by the city council on July 28, but gave no indica- tion that the 52 year-old skating palace would reopen for skating anytime soon.
The council gave the still popular former ice rink “significant” historical status, much to the pleasure of dozens of fans of the now closed ice arena.
Jennifer Trotoux, an architectural historian with the Architectural Resources Group, the firm that developed a study of the building that houses the ice rink, took the council through a history of ice rinks from Pasadena to Anaheim to Culver City.
“Many of these rinks would be examples of architectural significance but none of them survived,” Trotoux claimed. “It’s the expressiveness of these building that for me stand out.”
The rink was decommissioned in March after the property owner did not renew the last tenant’s contract.
Councilman Jeffery Cooper asked Trotoux about one of the criteria for historic designation- a structure being well preserved, given that the building has not had an exterior facelift in years.
“Something being in good condition is dif ferent than the level of historic integrity that something has,” Trotoux explained. “Historic integrity is what [art historians] really talk- ing about when they say well preser ved.”
Trotoux said there were several factors that comprise historical integrity, including workmanship, if the structure is in the same place when it was built, its design, etc.
Councilman Jim Clarke asked if the building’s sign could be separated from the ice arena if the council chose to award cultural designation. “To me, the sign is more historically than the building is.”
The historic context that Trotoux gave the council was not necessarily reflected in the rink’s sign, she said, although she said the sign was “character defining.” “You’d have to analyze the sign strictly on its on merits,” she added.
Councilman Andrew Weissman asked Trotoux how much subjectivity goes into her analysis. “There’s always a certain amount of subjectivity into any kind of work that I do,” she answered. “My job is really to put aside my assumptions about the building and really see what I can find in the record that will tell me what the historic context is and how closely that building is related to the context.”
The city’s Cultural Affairs Commission recommended historical designation for structure earlier this month after reviewing a report from Trotoux’s firm.
“This study has determined that the Culver City Ice Arena, originally known as Culver Ice Rink, is eligible for listing as a Culver City Cultural Resource at the ‘significant’ level,” the report states. “It also appears to be eligible for the California Registry of Historical Resources.”
Despite repeatedly being told that the rink cannot open again due to a number of structural problems, many residents implored the council to grant the skating rink historical cultural status but also argued for reopening the rink. For the first time, some cast the arena as a place where minority skaters were welcome at a time when they might not have been in other arenas.
Others implored the council to grant the skating rink historical cultural status but also argued for reopening the rink.
“The decommissioning of the rink has caused a huge hardship to local families,” said Susan Rosales, noting that new that the rink has closed families who want to skate must travel outside the city. ‘The only way to continue to provide this resource for our community is to provide significant status and recomission it instead of decommissioning it.”
Paul Erlich was the only speaker to take an opposite view to awarding the rink significant designation. “The building is architecturally ugly and cheaply made,” he asserted.
Erlich said giving the ice rink cultural significance could have adverse consequences for the property owner if he wanted to rent the building to a new tenant. “They would have to go through a lot of bureaucratic hoops. They would have to get special permits and special approvals. It could be a deal- breaker for any future tenant,” he said.
Clarke was uncharacteristically blunt about the rink reopening. “I have talked to the owner and he has no intention of making it an ice rink. The reality is that it’s not going to be an ice rink anymore. It’s going to be a tire store or a grocery store,” he asserted.
Community Development Director Sol Blumenfeld, responding to a question from Weissman, reconfirmed that bestowing historical significance to the ice arena had nothing to do with reopening the building as a skating rink or a change of use of the structure.
