Whatever Happened to ... the Xerox Square ice rink?

The Xerox Square ice rink was where people could skate outdoors in the shadow of Rochester’s tallest building.

There were and still are, of course, other ice-skating rinks in the Rochester area. But the one at Xerox Square was different, sunken beneath street-level in the heart of downtown, sort of like Rochester’s version of Rockefeller Center.

The rink opened a year after the brand-sparkling-new Xerox Tower became fully occupied and paired with an English pub-style restaurant where patrons could watch skaters while they dined. Professional hockey players and young beauty queens helped kicked off the skating seasons. Eventually, the Xerox rink quietly closed and the area was converted to an outdoor lounge/picnic area for employees.

It all started with the construction of Xerox Tower, the 443-foot new company headquarters, which was completed in 1968. The ice rink and The Shakespeare restaurant were among the attractions for Xerox Square. The 7,200-square-foot rink, built in an area about 14 feet beneath the main level, was supposed to open in late 1968 but construction problems pushed that back a year.

The Shakespeare opened earlier and was called the city’s first authentic English-style pub. The men who designed the restaurant made a three-week trip to England for authenticity’s sake, as Bill Beeney wrote in a 1968 Democrat and Chronicle column.

“This was no casual undertaking,” Beeney wrote. “They explored … the décor and details of a 16th-century pub like the Mermaid Tavern, where Shakespeare and fellow craftsmen (like) Sir Walter Raleigh … gathered to enjoy a pint.” The men came back to Rochester with a pair of old doors from an English castle, period furniture and 16th-century maps for The Shakespeare. Other materials came from razed East Avenue mansions, Beeney wrote.

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Other news stories of the era talked about The Shakespeare’s “thrust stage in the center of the floor,” the high-backed booths and waiters in “knee britches and waistcoats.”

The ice rink opened for its first season in December 1969. Before long, ads for the Shakespeare made the pitch to “watch the skaters at the Xerox rink while you dine.” Xerox moved its corporate headquarters from Rochester to Connecticut that same year.

In 1970, opening ceremonies at the rink included semifinalists for the Rochester Junior Miss Pageant who were escorted around the rink by members of the Rochester Amerks. Stars from the traveling Ice Capades show performed at the Xerox rink in December 1970.

Rochesterians took to the rink like fish to water, with 16,500 admissions in the winter of 1970-71. As Bill O’Brien wrote in a January, 1972 Upstate story, “Flashing blades, skittering bodies and oompah sounds of the music people skate to are becoming a downtown Rochester habit.”

Ice skating at the artificial rink typically ran from November or December through the following March. Three or so attendants were always on duty and skating sessions were staggered to allow for maintenance of the ice. The complex had its own Zamboni-like machine for the resurfacing work.

Amy Wells, who grew up in the Rochester area, shared memories of skating at Xerox Square in a Facebook post.

“My grandmother would take me down to the rink on Saturdays when my mom had to work (my mom worked at Xerox),” she posted. “I would skate an hour or two and we would go to Hot Sam’s for a soft pretzel, and meet my mom there after work, and head out to dinner.”

The Shakespeare closed for good after New Year’s Eve, 1975. Space occupied by the popular restaurant was originally converted to office use. A Xerox official at the time called the Shakespeare a “several hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year subsidy that we were maintaining. We just felt that the value we received there — as an image to have a good restaurant in the complex — just wasn’t worth it.”

By 1976, another ice rink opened at the new Manhattan Square Park, less than half-mile from Xerox Square. Even without its English-pub neighbor, the Xerox rink remained busy, with 14,600 skaters the winter of 1977-78 (compared to 8,000 for Manhattan Square), according to news reports.

Junior Miss contestants and high school bands continued to help kick off subsequent season-openers for the Xerox rink. The former Shakespeare was later converted to other restaurants, according to news reports. A 1976 news story that described local ice-skating rinks threw a nod to Xerox Square as a place where “Rochester’s more cosmopolitan skaters” could go.

Soon it was all over. When the rink closed for good is hard to determine. There was, apparently, no great fanfare involved. News articles outlining places to ice skate in Rochester included Xerox Square until early 1981; after that, there are no references.

Disrepair and maintenance costs were the reasons given for the closing.

And that, rather unceremoniously, was the end of our skating version of Rockefeller Center.

Alan Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.