The Polar Palace

Skaters at The Polar Palace in 1943. Photo courtesy University of Southern California Libraries.

Los Angeles, California's fascination with figure skating began during The Great War, when the Café Bristol installed a 26 X 60 foot ice tank for its patrons. In 1923, an ice rink was constructed on the United Studios lot for the Allen Hobular silent film "The White Frontier", starring Dorothy Phillips and Lewis Dayton. The film was about "social life in interior Canada" and had a lengthy skating scene, featuring one hundred would-be skaters recruited by Hollywood casting directors. Two years later, the Palais de Glace on Melrose and Vermont opened its doors. The city's first 'true' skating rink had an ice surface that measured 70 X 170 feet and seating for four thousand, five hundred spectators. Howard Nicholson performed at the Palais' grand opening in November of 1925. Ellen Rowena Eliot, the society matron and ex-wife of millionaire John V. Eliot, had a heart attack and died in the arms of one of the rink's instructors. Silent film star Pauline Garon entered a 'flapper race' on ice and a host of 'bright young things' competed in a Charleston contest at the rink, set to music by Bert Crossland's Palais de Glace Orchestra. The popularity and novelty of the rink, coupled with a growing interest in ice hockey, led proprietor C.E. Hopkins to open a second rink, the Glacier Palace, in 1926.

In comparison to the Palais de Glace, the Glacier Palace - renamed the Winter Garden - was a much grander affair. Located on North Van Ness Avenue between Melrose and Clinton, the rink had an ice surface that measured 231 X 90 feet and seating for six thousand, five hundred spectators. The year-round rink struggled in its early years when The Great Depression hit. Things got so bad financially that the owners had to sell one of the compressors out of the engine room. Then, on March 31, 1934, a smouldering cigarette burned the Palais de Glace to the ground. With the 'original' skating rink transformed into ashes and rubble, the Winter Garden took on a new importance. Film studio owner and producer and railroad mogul Billy Clune stepped in with the funds to give the run-down Winter Garden a much-needed makeover.

Sonja Henie at The Polar Palace in 1936. Photo courtesy Los Angeles Public Library.

The Winter Garden re-opened on September 23, 1934, as The Polar Palace and Bert Clark, a comedy and trick skater who later acted as Sonja Henie's stunt double in films, was hired to head up the figure skating program. A full staff of instructors was on hand right from the get-go, and the skating classes had a novel addition - slow motion pictures being projected onto a screen. Yet, in its early years, the rink's bread and butter were hockey games and marathon-style dance contests on ice. Noble 'Kid' Chissell, who went on to become a middleweight champion in boxing, won one of these contests. He recalled, "All the big stars came to watch us. Helen Twelvetrees, Toby Wing, Jack Oakie, Ben Turpin. They all had their favourite dancers, and Ruby Keeler was a big fan of mine. She used to come almost every night with her family." Despite the popularity of these events, the Polar Palace was barely kept afloat in its first two years. Mildred Martin recalled, "Clune was on the verge of transforming his white elephant into a ping pong gallery or a super-market. Then Sonja [Henie] descended on the town. Week after week, her show packed the Polar Palace. Clune's cash register soon sounded like a Swiss bell-ringer act."

The year after Sonja Henie made her professional debut at the Polar Palace, the Ice Follies came to town, packing the rink night after night with its dazzling show. Hollywood fell in love with layback spins and loops, and the Polar Palace soon became a something of institution in California's fast-developing skating scene. It played host to three of California's leading clubs - the Los Angeles, All-Year and Hollywood Figure Skating Clubs.

Photo courtesy University of Southern California Libraries

Verne Carlson, who managed the rink from 1939 until its demise, recalled in 1963, "Our local club produced some of the finest skaters in the world - Gene Turner won the national title, and later appeared in a film as Sonja Henie's partner - Donna Atwood, also a club member here, had fame as star of the Ice Capades, a then new ice show. Then we had a mite of a boy, Richard Dwyer, who went on to star in the Follies, followed later by [Catherine] Machado, who became a star in the Capades. We had a delightful girl from England called Belita, who came and made her home with us - in fact she made a motion picture on our ice. As for TV, we were the first in this country to have a live hour on television, when 'Frosty Frolics' ran for four months. The national championships were held at Polar Palace in 1954, and many lesser events were staged during the past twenty years. We have been proud of our standing in the neighbourhood - race, creed or colour meant nothing to us. In 1958, we decided to close temporarily for a face-lift, and we re-opened with a new floor, new equipment, new lighting - we looked just fine."

Photo courtesy Los Angeles Public Library

It all came crashing down - literally - on May 16, 1963. Around three in the morning, the Polar Palace was engulfed in flames. 

Flames shot as high as sixty feet into the air, and sparks flew onto nearby apartment buildings. A sound stage at the adjacent General Service Studios was a secondary victim of the blaze. Sixteen fire departments battled the inferno to no avail. Within an hour, the iconic rink burned to the ground. Old wiring in the rink's coffee shop was blamed for the fire. The rink was never rebuilt, but lives on in the collective memory of Californians to this very day.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.