At the first hint of that unforgettable synthesizer and drum machine, everyone rushed the floor.

Just 10 seconds into Debbie Deb’s “When I Hear Music," the DJ had to stop the song to prevent skaters from being trampled in the ensuing crush of wheels.

Perched in a booth high above the center of the wooden floor, the DJ controlled the soundtrack like some kind of Great and Powerful Oz of the roller jam, delivering iconic crowd favorites like Shannon’s “Let the Music Play," Newcleus’ “Jam on It" and Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force’s “Planet Rock."

The spot: The Rink. The time: Friday night.

For countless kids who came of age in the ’80s and ’90s, this was not just a roller skating rink in Bergenfield. The 33,000-square-foot space with the arched roof alternately functioned as a children’s birthday party factory, a jaunty nightclub and a meetup where you could make lifelong friends.

For 17 years, The Rink was a social hive where skaters spent their weekends in orbit under the candy-colored lights. The Bergen County institution also doubled as a proving ground for rising musical artists.

In the early days of hip-hop, performers such as LL Cool J and Run-DMC played The Rink. Famous faces such as Stevie Wonder and the Notorious B.I.G. mingled among a sizable New York crowd lured across the Hudson by the promise of more space to fly to the music.

“Something about the building was so full of energy," former employee Kenny Amos tells NJ Advance Media. “The Rink was sort of like a Studio 54, but in New Jersey.”

A group of skaters at The Rink. The venue had a disco night, rock night and Christian skate night. On adult night and Saturdays, customers skated to hip-hop.Courtesy Heather Leigh/Kenny Amos via The Rink Facebook group

The skate spot on South Washington Avenue closed in 1998, but Sheryle Robert still keeps in touch with everyone in her Rink crew.

“I knew like 100 people there," she says. "We just kind of ruled the place. It was almost like a big, huge family.”

So when an NHL regulation-size ice rink called The Rink opened last month at the American Dream megamall in East Rutherford, Robert and others weren’t about to let the shiny new object erase the legacy of their Rink. The place is still very much alive in the memories of North Jerseyans and regional skaters.

“My heart belongs to The Rink in Bergenfield," says Robert, 44, of Maywood, who remembers grooving across the wooden floor to the sounds of freestyle, the dance music of the the late ’80s. “Whether it’s called The Rink or not, it’s never going to be anything like the place that I went to. It’s just a very, very memorable, sentimental place.”

The Rink opened exactly 38 years ago to the month, in the middle of a roller skating boom. The pastime has largely been supplanted by other entertainment, and barely a handful of regional rinks remain.

While tensions with the community and police resulted in a lawsuit and allegations of racism, The Rink remains an indelible part of the lives of those who skated there.

LL Cool J made an appearance at The Rink early in his career.Kyle Long

A Studio 54 with Jersey energy

After working at The Rink for 15 years, Kenny Amos wasn’t about to let its 18-foot sign be demolished along with the rest of the building.

He still cherishes it, even if it’s too big to keep at his home. He stores it at a friend’s house.

“People offered money to buy it, and it’s like, no," he says.

Amos, 55, is something of a Rink historian and maintains a Facebook group dedicated to the institution. He started out managing a mini-golf feature in the rear of the facility, then moved on to fixing rental skates.

A manager offered him a job after noticing he’d been cleaning up the bottles outside on “rock night."

An aerial view of The Rink on South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield. Sears moved in after the skating venue was demolished in the late '90s. Now, the building is vacant. Courtesy Kenny Amos

“I used to actually hang out in the parking lot, then I got paid for hanging out in the parking lot,” says Amos, who grew up in Bergenfield.

Owners Robert and Marianne Dill worked with the designers of the Roxy in New York — a nightclub that started as a skating rink — to come up with a look for The Rink.

The outline of the New York skyline decorated the inside and outside of the building, visible from Route 4.

“It was a very revolutionary idea to put the DJ booth in the center," says Marianne, 73, who lives in Spring Lake with Robert, 75. "It was all designed very carefully so it applied to younger kids, but at nighttime, it appealed to adults as well.”

Skate rental at The Rink, which became both a spot for nightlife and a popular place for children's birthday parties.Courtesy Heather Leigh/The Rink in Bergenfield Facebook group

Growing up in a housing project on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Robert didn’t have a rink to go to. But he built one that brought people together.

Sure, there were rappers and celebrities in the mix. But there was something beyond the glitz that kept skaters coming back for more, Amos says.

“When you went there, you felt like everyone was your friend,” he says. “They all looked out for you.”

Two employees who met there even had their wedding at the place, surrounded by the skate lockers and snack bar where skaters routinely gobbled up Ellio’s-adjacent pizza.

“I can’t tell you how many weddings and marriages came from meetings at The Rink," says Robert Dill, a former executive for the American Stock Exchange.

The look of The Rink was created in collaboration with nightclub designers to appeal to adults as well as children.Courtesy Robert Dill

Rappers, New York and the in crowd

The Rink opened on a Wednesday night — Thanksgiving Eve — in 1981.

“For us, it was like baptism by fire," Marianne says. “We never ran a skating rink before.”

Soon enough, the place was drawing talents like a teenage LL Cool J. It was so early in the rapper’s career that Marianne remembers him peeking out of the dressing room to see if anyone had come to see him perform.

“The music is really key," Robert says. "You bring people up. You change their moods.”

Local celebrities, like Englewood’s Sugarhill Gang (“Rapper’s Delight"), made appearances, even if they weren’t performing.

Regular Ron Faison remembers when stars of golden era ’90s hip-hop, like the Notorious B.I.G., were fixtures at the skating rink.

The Rink became a go-to destination on Friday and Saturday nights for skaters in North Jersey and New York.Kyle Long

“Places like The Rink are pivotal in the history of hip-hop," especially as a testing ground for songs, says Faison, 37, of Hackensack. He now works as a show producer in the music industry, collaborating with Meek Mill, Kid Capri and Sevyn Streeter.

“Every artist wanted their music to play there," he says. "If your record played there, it was almost guaranteed to be a hit at some point.”

By the late ’80s and early ’90s, a sizable crowd of New York skaters had made The Rink their home across the Hudson. Kyle Long was one, except he didn’t start out as a skater. The Rink made him one.

He would make the trip from the Bronx — then home to another bygone rink, the Skate Key — to follow the “in” crowd and take photographs capturing the scene. After snapping photos of regulars, he would return the next week and sell them the pictures.

Sandra "Pepa" Denton of Salt-N-Pepa with her manager (at left), Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor, at The Rink.Kyle Long

“It started to get real popular," says Long, 56. "The stars followed the crowd.”

His treasure trove of archival photos features LL Cool J and Sandra “Pepa” Denton from Salt-N-Pepa.

“Over time, I started skating, because that was the best way to get close to the girls," Long says. "It encouraged me to get my first pair of skates of my own, and I’ve been skating ever since.”

Community tensions and the end of an era

As the number of skaters surged at The Rink, so did tensions with Bergenfield’s town council and police.

On any given night, hundreds of skaters would show up, hang out in the front of the venue and spill out onto Washington Avenue. The size of the crowds sometimes moved Bergenfield police to call for assistance from other towns. The police chief called the scene a drain on resources.

In 1992, the council began talking about cracking down on loitering.

“Bergenfield may outlaw hanging out,” read a headline from The Record newspaper at the time.

Robert and Marianne Dill would hire as many as 20 off-duty police officers to help with particularly busy times, like Tuesdays, which were designated “adult” nights.

Skaters out on the floor, which became a popular testing ground for new music. Courtesy Robert Dill

But a 1993 borough ordinance required businesses (but not bars, due to state regulation) to close at midnight on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends. The Rink had previously stayed open until 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. on weekends.

The Dills fought the measure in court, claiming the ordinance was motivated by racism. They said officials did not seek to limit The Rink’s hours until the venue started drawing more black skaters. Borough officials denied targeting black customers, and instead pointed to noise complaints and incidents of reported fights and theft at neighboring businesses that occurred after 1 a.m.

But in expressing his support for the ordinance, one councilman specifically referred to customers of The Rink’s popular Tuesday nights as a “metropolitan-area crowd.”

“The real issue is whether out-of-towners are welcome in Bergenfield to enjoy a roller skating session, regardless of their race, color, or creed,” the Dills wrote in a Record letter to the editor in June 1995. “And can a town council pass legislation to void that right here in the U.S.A.?"

Inside the DJ booth at The Rink with Bobby Jeremias, a music, lighting and technical director.Courtesy Robert Dill

Just 10 days later, police from seven towns responded to The Rink.

Hot 97′s DJ Funkmaster Flex, a fixture at the venue on Saturday nights, had been at Greekfest, an event attended by black fraternities and sororities at Jones Beach on Long Island. He announced that the afterparty would be at The Rink. More than 700 people were reportedly turned away at the door and remained outside the building.

The Dills were not pleased that Funkmaster Flex had advertised the event to such a large crowd, but they don’t subscribe to the notion that the situation was a major hazard.

“I think it was an overreaction on the cops’ part,” Marianne Dill says.

"Bergenfield at that time, I don’t think, was accepting," says owner Robert Dill. "Inside The Rink, people always just wanted to have fun.”Courtesy Robert Dill

Months before, more than 80 police officers had responded to what they called “a riot” outside The Rink. Windows were broken and merchandise was stolen from a nearby Radio Shack, according to a report in The Record.

After the Funkmaster Flex incident, borough officials once again mobilized, and the Dills voluntarily instituted early closing times through the fall.

“It started to become a problem,” Long says. “They didn’t want us out there. For the people that skated, they went there for the love of the skate. We don’t care what color you are.”

The Dills settled their lawsuit with Bergenfield in 1996, reaching a compromise on closing times.

But The Rink continued to be a thorn in the side of officials until it shut down in 1998. A former mayor called its closure “the best thing that’s happened to Bergenfield.”

Robert Dill says he closed The Rink because the building’s roof needed to be replaced, not due to community pressure. It would have been a six-month project with a price tag of up to $600,000. Interest in the property from Sears convinced him it was the right move.

Today, the property is vacant. Dill sold it two years ago, after the store went out of business.

But the legacy of his skating gem lives on in more ways than just fond memories.

“It actually changed some attitudes in Bergenfield after a while," says Dill, who owned a second Rink in Montvale that closed in 2007. “Bergenfield at that time, I don’t think, was accepting. Inside The Rink, people always just wanted to have fun."

An advertisement for DJ Funkmaster Flex, who often appeared on Saturdays at The Rink. One overcrowded night in 1995 got the place closed early for months.Courtesy Kenny Amos

Keeping the memories rolling

Despite the conflict three years earlier, Funkmaster Flex presided over the grand finale celebration in June 1998, when The Rink bid farewell to Bergenfield.

As for DJ requests, they were often allowed “within reason" (it helped if you knew the person in the booth). Back in the ’80s, Frank Toscano incessantly bugged DJ Mike Sheridan with his request to play Madonna’s “Crazy for You” so he could skate with his crush.

When Sheridan finally played the song, he announced to everyone that Toscano had nagged him for two months “to play this stupid song."

“It was kind of funny and embarrassing at the same time,” says Toscano, 49. He grew up in Dumont and worked at The Rink from 1985 to 1987.

“I wasn’t a good skater at all, but once I got a job there, it opened up a whole new world," says Toscano, who now owns an auto body shop in Garfield. “It was like getting paid to hang out with your friends. It was like your second home. Saturday nights, they use to run sessions until 5 o’clock in the morning.”

In June, Toscano will host his fifth Rink Shindig, a biannual reunion party he started in 2015 for former co-workers and friends. At the last one, Amos brought the huge Rink sign.

Kool DJ Red Alert at The Rink in the '90s.Courtesy Kenny Amos

As for the American Dream complex’s decision to use the name? “It’s like opening up a toy store that’s called Toys R Us,” Toscano says.

Faison co-hosted a separate reunion in Teaneck last year with DJ SNS, another Rink original.

“Growing up as a kid, I didn’t think any other rink existed in the world," Faison says. "We celebrated every birthday there.”

Even though The Rink closed more than 21 years ago, the place still maintains a physical presence on North Washington Avenue in Bergenfield. Its special energy lingers at The Pyramid, a former record store that sells T-shirts, posters and buttons.

For years, Eleanor Reiche Garcia printed shirts for The Rink featuring the venue’s logo in a font reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall" album. She displays a leftover shirt in the window.

“It’s faded. It’s gray. But they recognize it, driving by,” she says.

Turns out, Reiche Garcia never stopped printing the shirts, since people are always asking for them.

“They’ll see it on Facebook. They’ll call from all parts of the country,” she says. “It’s a real conversation starter when you wear that shirt.”

Have a tip? Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.

Get the latest updates right in your inbox. Subscribe to NJ.com’s newsletters.