When the McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn reopened in the summer of 2012, there was a peculiar concrete plaza, called “the beach” by parks officials, that jutted into the center of the pool. It became a popular spot for running through the spray fountains there and keeping an eye on toddlers and novice swimmers.

Now the space is about to take on a new identity, as a venue for winter recreation. On Nov. 15, the plaza will become northern Brooklyn’s first ice-skating rink on parks land and one of only a handful of rinks in the borough. The rink is not huge, but with 7,200 square feet of space, it will accommodate more than 300 skaters.

“We’re in an ice-rink desert here,” said Ed Janoff, executive director of the Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn, a nonprofit group that works closely with the parks department and will operate the new rink, on the Greenpoint-Williamsburg border. He said the McCarren rink, which will also have a gift market and food carts, would be a “winter destination and holiday tradition for New Yorkers and visitors alike.”

Kevin Jeffrey, the parks department’s borough commissioner for Brooklyn, said that in community meetings to plan for the $50 million pool reconstruction, local residents had placed a skating rink at the top of their wish list for the project. “This will activate the park in winter,” he said, referring to the 35-acre McCarren Park.