BROOKLINE HISTORY: Ice Skating at Brookline Parks & Playgrounds

Long before there was a town skating rink in Larz Anderson Park, Brookline children and adults in search of winter recreation found places to go skating in town.

Local ponds like Hammond Pond, Sargent’s Pond, and, for a time, Leverett Pond on the border with Jamaica Plain were common destinations for skaters. But ponds could be dangerous in winter.

That was especially true at Leverett Pond, where flowing water under the ice from two streams entering the pond weakened the frozen surface. Bans on skating on the pond were difficult to enforce, however. Deaths and/or rescues of skaters or others who ventured onto the Leverett Pond ice (and other ponds) occurred regularly from the 1890s on through the 1940s.

A Christmas Day tragedy on Leverett Pond in 1898 (Boston Globe, December 26, 1898)

Brookline’s acquisition of the decommissioned Boylston Street reservoir in 1903 added a new site for skating, though the depth of the reservoir meant it took a long time to freeze while also adding safety concerns.

The Brookline Reservoir, unfrozen, as seen from Heath Hill

“During the present skating season thousands of people have insisted upon going upon the ice when warned that the ice was unsafe,” reported the Park Commissioners in 1906. “At times the services of several police officers and a number of park employees have been unable to keep people from venturing upon the ice. The terrible nature of the calamity which is likely to occur under these conditions is fully realized by the Commissioners.”

Unable to keep people off the ice, the town placed ladders, ropes, and life preservers at various places around the reservoir, along with signs warning to keep off the ice when conditions were unsafe. “It is hoped,” stated the Commission, “that the people of Brookline will realize the risks attending skating and do everything in their power to aid the Department in the enforcement of the rules.”

At the same time, the Park Commissioners recognized the value of good skating venues. “There are not many sports available during the winter in Brookline,” they wrote in another early report. “Among them there is no exercise which should be more encouraged than that of skating. It brings health to the body and refreshing vigor to the mind. No pains should be spared in cultivating its enjoyment in as many parts of the town as practicable.”

In 1905 the town allocated $700 to experiment with creating a skating venue at the Cypress Street Playground, diverting water from the Village Brook the ran along the train tracks to create a skating surface for smaller children. The method proved impractical, but within a few years a new system involving spraying water onto the grass was more successful. Two areas were set aside on Cypress Field, a small fenced-in area for hockey and a larger area “for the plain skating without menace from the more strenuous games.”

The same method was soon employed at other parks and playgrounds in town, including the Brookline Avenue Playground (shown at the top of this article), Devotion Playground (shown below), and the Beacon Street Playground (now Waldstein Park on Dean Road).

“The pleasure obtained from this sport can only be appreciated by a visit to one of these playgrounds while skating is in progress and the ice is covered with crowds collected to enjoy this healthful and delightful exercise,” reported the Park Commissioners in 1917.

In later years, skating was added at additional parks and playgrounds including Clark, Coolidge, Eliot, Driscoll, Lawrence, Robinson, and Soule. Some of these had more than one area for skating, often including separate sections for hockey. In many of the playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts with their flat surfaces were turned into skating rinks. The number of days of skating varied, depending on the weather.

The pond at Larz Anderson Park was also used for skating after the acquisition of the park by the town but before the new rink was built. The Brookline Reservoir, where the high school hockey team played its games in the early part of the century, also continued to be used for skating for many years. (A 1971 article in the Brookline Chronicle reported that skaters and hockey players had been allowed on the reservoir ice that winter for the first time since 1957.)

Skating on the Brookline playgrounds continued until the late 1960s or early 1970s. A query posted on the Facebook group “Things I Remember Growing Up in Brookline” elicited many happy memories from current and former residents who grew up in town in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.

• "Learned how to skate on the ice provided by the fire hoses flooding the tennis courts at Dean Park.” - Mike McKinstry
• "We would go home every day after school, have a snack and head back to the Devotion playground to skate.” - Meryl Rose.
• "The fire department flooded Cypress field and we would skate there but I remember it was quite bumpy. I preferred skating at the Brookline reservoir which was nice and smooth.” - Diane Cross
• “I went to the Heath school and on gym days we would bring our skates to school and gym period we would walk across to Eliot playground to go skating.” - Joe Baker
• "The ice was always rutted and that's how I learned to skate [at Devotion]. No zamboni to smooth the ice. Every once in a while, the firemen put more water on and the ice was smooth for about 20 minutes. Happy times.” - Judy Syatt Levye
• "Every year the town took down the tennis nets at Coolidge park and flooded the courts to skate on...all was well every day until the guys showed up with hockey equipment and started shooting pucks at us to get us to leave!” - Karen Amy Kaplan
• "I remember Brookline Avenue. The hardtop area where the sprinklers were was iced over for us to skate. We always enjoyed it although it was a challenge sometimes because we would have to skate around all kinds of stuff stuck in the ice - rocks, limbs, leaves, etc.” - Camilla E. Clancy
• "I distinctly recall skating on a flooded parking lot or basketball court at Heath Playground, which was behind the old Eliot School on Eliot Street, across the street from the actual Heath School. The Town installed ‘boards' (like a hockey rink) on the asphalt and flooded the area.” - Bradford Miller
• "It was rarely pristine [at Devotion] but it was certainly good enough to support our level of play...The lower level was used for both general skating and hockey, while the upper level was just for hockey. There were players of all levels and ages. Somehow everyone found a place in the game.” - Charlie Silverman

Skating and hockey at the Driscoll Playground, 1957

Photos and description provided by the Brookline Historical Society and the Public Library of Brookline. For more Brookline history, visit http://brooklinehistoricalsociety.org and https://www.brooklinelibrary.org/what-we-have/local-history/