Outdoor Ice Skating At Pershing Square

For most of the year, Pershing Square is a largely concrete, downtown plaza that plays host to a fountain, a bizarre purple sculpture tower, along with some homeless nappers. Calling it visually appealing would be a stretch. Yet, experiencing an LA winter would be incomplete without a visit here.



Get into the winter spirit by hitting (hopefully not too hard) Pershing Square's small, outdoor ice skating rink, open from November 15 to January 21.



Imagine skating outdoors, surrounded by people who have never touched a skate to ice before, with the sun beating down and palm trees in plain sight. Rockefeller Center it ain’t, but why skate in freezing weather when you don’t have to?



Here’s what I enjoyed this past Sunday:
Gleaming skyscrapers loomed over the rink. Friends and families, some chatting in Spanish and others in English, along with pockets of Korean and Italian, tried to stay upright with varying success. Kids laughingly fell into heaps as shutterbug parents snapped their wobbles from the sidelines. Meanwhile, a centipede-like line of skaters clung to the outside railing, pulling themselves around the ice. And once the sun went down, sparkly lights gave the rink a holiday glow.



Bonus for Sunday skaters: live music! This past weekend I heard fun redneck classics like “Wooly Bully” and “Margaritaville” from a stage right in front of the ice. The novelty of live music at an outdoor rink was cool – for the first hour.

If you’re hoping to show off your mad skating skills or want to uninterruptedly zoom around pristine ice, Pershing Square is not the place for you. For one, the ice on the small rink is kind of uneven and two, it can get as clogged as LA rush-hour traffic, at least on weekends. So if you fall into this category, try one of LA’s year-round skating rinks.

Skating sessions last an hour with 30 minutes in-between sessions to smooth the ice for the next crowd. Admission per session costs $6, plus $2 for skate rental. Parking is available at the garage under Pershing Square. Remember to get your ticket validated to reduce your parking payout. Click here for more information.

To get a feel for the square in its normal state, check out this post from a downtown LA resident.