If you came up in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, chances are you have some memories of Rainbo Roller Rink, located on Clark Street just north of Lawrence in Uptown. This unique venue was converted from Rainbo Gardens (itself formerly Moulin Rouge Gardens), a general center of colorful, mobbed-up early-20th century crazy partying and scofflawery. Nice little history of the building can be found here at Jazz Age Chicago.

“Adaptive reuse” of old structures is a surefire way to develop a unique and memorable urban space - Rainbo was no exception, with the structure having undergone a patchwork of budget-minded and gaudy modifications to gradually repurpose it for the changing times (it’s final incarnation being a very….urban (for lack of a better word…both in character and in clientele) roller rink. Flickr user juggernautco uploaded a series of photos he took just prior to Rainbo’s closing in 2002/2003… all photos in this thread are his, unless otherwise noted.

The place just oozed awesome character - another thing I couldn’t fully appreciate when I was there as a kid, though I’m glad for the memories. Speaking of memories, I have one very clearly of being here with a group of friends from Jewish Day School circa 4th grade, and skating around while singing along to Gillete (yes, that song. I’d sell a kidney to acquire a video of this memory.). The 69 Boyz and Real McCoy also featured rather prominently in the awesome Rainbo playlist.

Speaking of oozing, you can sort of tell the place was a dump. I also vaguely remember the filthy purple bathrooms…

Thanks for the refresh, juggernautco.

Of course, the rink was demolished a few years ago to make way for a large Condo and Townhouse development known as Rainbo Village. Now, I can accept progress just fine - in fact, the gradual repurposing of physical space (which includes, yes, demolition) is a key component of urbanity and is particularly crucial to Chicago’s identity, in particular - besides, this rat-infested dump with bags of human bones in the basement (yes…really… they found these during demolition) is a weak case of landmark preservation in any sense, and some nerd’s nostalgia isn’t justification enough to hold up progress.

THAT SAID…
Do you dirtbags really need to spit in our eye and name the new development after the thing you demolished? Check the site - they even named one of the components of the development “Rouge Gardens” presumably to ensure maximum grave-spinning. It’s just so… suburban - it’s the urban equivalent of demolishing all the trees and natural landscape then naming the cul-de-sac streets after them. Why must the real estate industry do this? Other recent examples of such gratuitous and unnecessary insult include, offhand:

• The Chicago Coliseum being replaced by Coliseum Park Condos.
• Capone’s HQ, the Lexington Hotel, replaced by Lexington Park.

Oh, and of course, the redevelopment is (1) clouded by obvious pay-to-zone corruption and (2) now in foreclosure. Whatevs. We have our memories, and that’s what counts…sort of. If you have any from Rainbo or other now-defunct Chicago skate venus from the 1980s/1990s (Route 66 on South King Drive comes to mind), please share!