Rollercade (1 results)

Condition: Very good. Small archive of materials, consisting of two mimeographed programs (one octavo, one quarto and top-stapled), one "Roller Skate Dancing" manual (the fifth edition, 1959), and twelve 8" x 10" photographs, all professionally executed, depicting groups of dancers in costume. Photographs uniformly curled at the edges, else clean and fresh. Modest wear to other materials; overall very good. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, the Rollercade was the "largest unobstructed roller rink in America," about the size of a football field. The building had been originally constructed by the Cleveland Union Stockyards Co. for livestock shows and horse riding contests, but was converted to a roller rink after the decline in popularity for those other events. All of the photographs are professionally composed and printed, and are mostly group shots, though there are two images of a middle-aged woman on skates, taken from two angles (perhaps she had instructed the photographer to "get her good side?"). Some of the prints are credited to William K. Kopp, a Cleveland photographer. Looking through the "Rollercade Revue of '57" program herein, a "Bill Kopp" is listed as one of the skaters. That document, consisting of 17 leaves (pritned rectos only), lists a number of performances, such as "April in Paris," "Charleston," "Indian Festival," "Hearts in Waltz Time," etc. Lists of dancers are on every page, organized in a kind of unlabeled checkerboard chart, whose purpose is not immediately evident to us. A nice grouping of materials relating to a very popular craze, ad the height of the "Golden Age of Roller Skating." The craze ended rather abruptly in the early 1960s with the rise of the counterculture movement. By 1968, the building that housed the Rollercade had been razed and replaced with a supermarket.