Take a leisurely float on the unexpected side CNO canal boat tours are in Georgetown through October boat rides are available Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m to 4 P.M they offer one hour guided historical tours along the first mile of the CNO Canal drift back in time to learn about the unexpected stories
Technology and culture of the canal and its people with Scenic Georgetown as your backdrop to plan your ride through history visit georgetownheritage.org vote Today on citycast DC roller skating became All the Rage during the pandemic but for DC this wasn’t really a new thing just ask DC skate Enthusiast Selita Coleman Selena says the district has always had a special connection to skating It’s Wednesday August 23rd I’m Bridget Todd and here’s what DC is talking about I’m here with Thalia Coleman who has been bringing skating back to the area when people say bringing skating back to DC what do they mean by that like where did skating go in DC the district has not had a indoor roller rink in almost 30 years so bringing it back is something that
People have wanted ever since the day the calorama doors were closed and that was the Harris Teeter on Columbia Road and Adams Morgan so that dream that wished to bring some version of roller skating back to the district has been the dream of many Native washingtonians
And I’ve just become an advocate to help maybe get in rooms to maybe help make that happen what is that advocacy looked like trying to make DC a bigger skating Hub as it used to be back in the day like what does that advocacy look like
For you It All Started from the 2018 United Skates documentary for me the HBO documentary and Associate producer on that film and some folks in DC government happened to be in New York at the Tribeca film festival and they watched the movie and a conversation came up that said how come DC wasn’t
Discussed in the film and the film’s directors producers myself we said it’s because the district hasn’t had a rank in 30 years so there was nothing to really highlight in the movie so that movement and discussion brought on the capital skate Fest that took place in 2019 over in the DC Armory it
Took almost two years to get that one day of roller skating to happen in the DC Armory but it was something that really opened a can of worms in the district that there are people that are still here craving spaces to roller skate in because almost 5 000 people
Appeared that day wow so if there is a thirst for skating in the city right like even though we don’t necessarily have a lot of places to do it people want it to be a thing here in DC yeah yeah for sure we have Anacostia Park and
I always highlight the park because it is the only protected federal government space in the country for roller skating the National Park Service operates and manages that space it’s federally protected and nobody else has anything like it it’s covered roller skating space outside that’s free to the public
That in itself is awesome but as we know DC isn’t a year-round sunny and Breezy place to live so we kind of would like to have a space where you can go inside and maybe uh turn the heat on as necessary because Anacostia Park is it’s covered but it’s still outside and we’ve
Only got four or five months a year where we can really enjoy that yeah that rink in Anacostia Park is so much fun and it really is something that I think is unique about DC I think it’s the only National Park in the country that has a
Skating rink in it it is so that’s definitely something that makes skating unique in DC but what is it about skating in DC that’s different from anywhere else people that live here may take it for for granted but we have a backdrop unlike no other city in the
Country has it’s one of the most pedestrian and transportation friendly cities in the country so if we were to have indoor roller skating space it couldn’t be more accessible um in any city than DC has we have scooters we have bikes trains trolleys buses any mode of transportation you
Could want we have access to which makes having a roller rink in a lot of cities a challenge because they’re out in the suburbs you need a car if we had a rink in the district I think we would be popping all the time oh if it has wheels
We have it here in the district yeah yeah absolutely so so many different cities have their own kind of unique style or flavor of skating what would you say is DC’s well DC’s or at least the style skate community that we refer to it as snap the snap style of skating
Which is most mostly in arm length or hand arm connected skate style where there is a leader and there are followers and it’s to a unique beat of Music somewhere in that 60 to 90 beats a minute where it’s just Soulful and beautiful and interconnected that’s kind
Of a style that DC has defined and other cities have come to admire and try to learn how how do you skate trains that way I’d say in the last five years or so you’ve got other cities wanting to know how to snap so DC is kind of um a bit of
A star right now because they’ve noticed they’re back DC is skating again yeah we’re coming back we’re coming back in DC is it mostly just for fun or are people like doing it competitively no this isn’t style skaters um as we talk about a mostly a mostly African-American niche of roller skating
Style skating is what it’s called we’re not competitive where we’re out there to feel good and skate and friendly safe environments in our community We’re Young we’re old roller skating can start for some as young as two when you start walking and as old as in your 70s or 80s
So it’s one of the most Community immersed activities that you can do and for us it’s never really been competitive so I do a little bit of skating myself like I’m just basically trying not to fall on my skates my big claim to fame is I can skate backward if
Anybody tells you otherwise they are not correct I do most of my skating at the Cardozo education campus it’s like a school parking lot here in Columbia Heights which is beautiful I love it it’s my favorite place to skate because of the lack of ranks in these see you
Really kind of have to be creative if you want to practice your skating have you heard of folks like skating in some unique places in the city so I am an advocate for roller skating and non-traditional spaces meaning not ranks just this past October 2022 I hosted the
Legends Gala inside the anthem down on the wharf The Anthem was a beautiful venue for roller skating a polished concrete floor awesome wide open space we’ve used the DC Armory obviously for Capital skate Fest there are too many large venues in the district that if we could create Partnerships among some of
Those facilities whether it be a Rec Center a nightclub or entertainment venue we could have some non-traditional roller skating space there are probably businesses that aren’t busy on a Tuesday or Thursday night of the week where they might welcome additional business of a 200 adults to come in and skate roller
Disco style people think when you’re roller skating you need Wide Open Spaces to go around in a circle when that’s really not the case we can dance partnered we can dance in spaces that you wouldn’t normally think of during the pandemic we skated in our living rooms our kitchens our balconies I want
To get rid of the the notion that you need this huge space to go around in a circle because there’s probably a nightclub or a Rec Center that could make themselves available for us to skate in most of my youth I loved skating I kind
Of fell out of it and then during the pandemic I got back into it and I was surprised to see so many people getting back into skating it felt like a like a thing I don’t know what it was about the pandemic that kick-started people’s interest in skating did you find that to
Be the case as well like something about the pandemic had folks craving for the freedom that comes with skating so those of us that were already skaters we didn’t experience that because we were already a part of the community we were mostly just missing each other but what
We noticed out on social media sites people were gravitating toward the music and wanting some movement so naturally with so much roller skating content on the internet we found that folks were kind of uh trying to get on the bandwagon jumping in the rink with us so the pandemic really didn’t bring skating
Back it was always there it just let a whole new group of folks in that made it hard hard to get skates for a while which is awesome I’ve worked on behalf of the manufacturers in the roller skating space over the years and it was exciting for there to be wait list you
Know to just buy a pair of skates on the manufacturing end of things factories overseas over in China they couldn’t access parts so that you could have wheels and bearings and plates connected to to your skate so it made it harder to buy roller skates for a while I just
Think covid brought in the next generation of folks that will probably make roller skating more fun fashionable it kind of brought a little sexy to roller skating the knee-high socks are back and the cute Fashions it just added more fun to what was already an exciting community Do you like to eat well listen up because Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week presented by Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington returns to wrap up the end of Summer from Monday August 28th through Sunday September 3rd and leads into DC jazz festival Metropolitan Washington restaurant week is the area’s signature dining promotion
With 250 plus restaurants participating including first-time participants at DCA and Dulles International Airport expanding the promotion to all arriving and departing our region for summer travels just go to the restaurant Week website at rwdmv.com to view participating locations menus and to make reservations Mike A little birdie told me that somebody recently had a birthday it is true although I thought you were gonna say uh John Riggins and Barack Obama both of whom share my birthday oh that’s a good list of people to share birthdays with so you Barack Obama and citycast DC
All have similar if not the same birthdays right so and we are celebrating uh the City cast anniversary doing something live on August 28th we are both going to be there for a live anniversary taping and party wait it’s all happy party and taping it starts at 5 pm and
There’s going to be a natural wine tasting by plant-wise Monday night taping starts at 6 30 and it’ll kind of be a nice Fall Foliage looking event we’re going to be talking about DC’s fall fairs so getting us ready for the cooler fall weather which y’all know is
My favorite season and we will be joined by Chelsea ceruso formerly of axios now my political color I can’t wait I’m excited to get to hang with you and celebrate both your birthday City cast DC’s Birthday Barack Obama’s birthday all in one spot where’s the weirdest or most interesting
Place that you skated in DC none of it’s weird I would say Freedom Plaza is a lot of fun we’ve been down there for those of us that have always been traditional indoor rent skaters it took the pandemic for us to be open to skating outside we were very uh stuck up
About wanting our indoor wood floors smooth spaces when you skate outside you got to interact with twigs and Pebbles and potholes had there not been a pandemic there was there’s a whole league of us that would have never put our wheels on an outdoor surface and for listeners that don’t know there’s a
Difference between your indoor and your outdoor wheel so a lot of us didn’t want our indoor wheels on those outdoor surfaces what are the differences hardness so if your wheel is really hard when you roll over rock or piece of glass outside you really feel that bump
It’s also a safety hazard where if your wheel is softer it can absorb some of the smaller debris and things that you might roll over outside there is something just something about I mean I I hear you about opening up and skating in these new non-traditional spaces to
Open up the Pastime but there really is something about a nice smooth hardwood floor on your nice hard quad Wheels there’s just something about it there’s nothing like it I just came off of four nights of roller skating down in Florida and to see 1300 you know adult skaters
Out on the rink floor from Midnight to four or five in the morning there’s just nothing like it it would be so cool if DC could give us that that old school energy of being in the rink all night how did you get first get into skating
So I witnessed the 911 incident over in Pentagon City the plane crashed into the Pentagon I experienced a great deal of PTSD from that event and I was at a trade show that following year and I saw a guy dancing at a cocktail party and he had a whole lot of
Rhythm for a middle-aged Korean guy and I said where’d you learn how to dance like that where’d you get your Rhythm from and he said I skate with the brothers and the sisters and I just looked at him like he had a few heads and I said I don’t believe you you’re
Crazy and he said if you don’t believe me meet me in Chicago and go to the skate party with me so I bought a pair of skates and practiced for a few months and that following July I was in Chicago walked into a rink at midnight and I saw maybe
2 000 adults you know in a very uh awesome music filled alcohol-free smoke-free environment and I said This Is My Jam I could get into this so that’s when I started skating and that was right around 2004 or five and he just kept Wheeling around ever since and
Then some the thing for me in roller skating has always been the music the music and the movement I’ve never felt more free for my community I know that from folks that live in underserved communities it’s been a thing to keep kids off the streets but I know a lot of
Folks that have not had that experience growing up that love roller skating the guy that introduced me to roller skating was a chemical engineer at Chevron he didn’t have any gangs in his neighborhood or anything to keep him off the streets he liked the music and the
Movement and the people my background in marketing and corporate Communications kind of got me immersed in the industry I would help rank operators with some of their promotions I would bring product sponsorships to some skating events and I started hosting skating events and it’s been a very uh long a long time
Kind of involved in the business side as well as the community how can folks who are listening who are beginners or maybe interested in getting more involved in skating how can they get started do you have any basic tips for them as they start their skating
Journey well first of all people want to grab a pair of skates you want to make sure that you learn about the product if you’re an adult you don’t want to go out and spend 80 or 99 bucks on a pair of skates because they’re not going to
Sustain your movements for very long I’d say you’re probably going to spend anywhere between 200 and 250 bucks on a pair of beginner skates if you’re serious about it you can go out and rent skates when you go to some of the Suburban roller rinks but every time you
Go skating a pair of rentals is going to be different they’re going to be adjusted different you want your own skates when you’re starting out um some folks want to run off to Amazon and get them I’d look for a local skate shop the DC area has bikes and skates as
Well as a wonderful young lady owns a skate shop down in Woodbridge I know it’s further outside side of the city but we’ve got two skate shop owners in the area start with a local business owner who can have some product knowledge and get you in the right pair
Just get out there and try it you know it’s really all about music and relaxing and enjoying it with good friends so hopefully if you’re starting you know someone or can talk someone into joining you we’re a diverse group of people our backgrounds and experiences vary but the
One Nation Under a Groove Thing you know that song it absolutely applies to roller skating from bums to Ballers everybody can be in the skate world it’s so true felita Coleman thank you so much for being here today I’ll see you on the rink fantastic thank you
And before you skate out here’s some quick news a Transformer exploded in Arlington leaving approximately 10 000 customers without power for hours on Tuesday a Dominion Energy employee also suffered burns from the explosion which has been attributed to a fault in an underground cable meanwhile new details about the 9-1-1
Call for district dogs flooding last week indicate that a dispatcher error delayed the emergency response severe Flooding at the Dog Daycare drowned 10 dogs it has now been revealed that the 911 dispatcher told firefighters the business simply had a water leak creating a lack of urgency
And finally DC broke ground on the first ever rec center in Anacostia it’s been in the works for over 15 years and will open in 2024 officials and community members hope the center will help deter crime in the area by keeping young people off the streets with recreational opportunities That’s all for today here on citycast DC if you enjoyed the show why not tell a friend who’s going to tear up that roller rink they can rate the show leave us a review And subscribe to our morning newsletter we’ll be back tomorrow morning with even more news around the
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