By Gus Saltonstall
A large pickleball court installation is returning to Central Park’s Wollman Rink on Wednesday.
Wollman Rink, in partnership with CityPickle, will host 14 pickleball courts from May 1 through early fall, which will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.
The Central Park courts opened for the first time last year, and drew more than 56,000 players over the course of the spring and summer, according to CityPickle.
Along with the opening date reveal, Wollman Park Partners and CityPickle also announced a seasonal three-year agreement from 2024 to 2026 for the continued use of the space as pickleball courts.
“To see pickleball coming to Central Park’s Wollman Rink combines the joy of outdoor recreation with the social and health benefits of community engagement,” Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue said, in a news release. “Wollman Rink provides ample space for pickleball, allowing players to enjoy the game while basking in the beautiful greenery of one of our most famed parks.”
While you can book a court with up to eight people, the price to secure a space at Wollman Rink will cost you more than a jar of pickles.
Peak-hour courts go for $120 and off-peak reservations will cost $80. Every hour of Friday through Sunday is considered peak, whereas off-peak is from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday.
Pickleball is generally played with four people, meaning it would be $30 a person for an average session during peak hours.
CityPickle and Wollman Park Partners are introducing a new program called Community Play this year, though, where for a certain period of the day, people can spend $10 a person to get two hours of play, along with a free paddle rental. (It’s pretty limited, so you’ll have to scramble.)
There will also be group clinics, private coaching lessons, and competitive leagues.
Pickleball is America’s fastest growing sport, jumping nearly 40 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to the New York Times.
Wollman Rink is just south of the 65th Street Transverse within Central Park.
You can find out more and book courts for yourself — HERE.
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Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Judy Collins, Gang Of Four, Gordon Lightfoot, Laura Nyro, Todd Rundgren…………. It’s a long list of amazing concerts that were held at Wollman Rink for an admission of a couple of bucks. A great cultural summer tradition was shut down with the ruse that after years of botched attempts when the rink was finally repaired by Donald Trump that the music would damage it. The real reason was the rich living on 5th Avenue didn’t like the noise or the people that came to the shows. So now we have PICKLEBALL. Woohoo. NYC used to be a very cool place.
The Schaefer Concerts were a highlight of my high school years…
Yup, they were loud–you could sit on the grass nearby and hear everything.
And the ticket prices? $1.50n and 2.50 for Bruce Springsteen (and Anne Murray!) in 1974.
That’s an obscene amount of money, IMHO. Shameful.
Will there be subsidies for poor people who can’t afford the fees? This is a public park. Shouldn’t everyone have access to this growing in popularity sport and space in the park or are we creating a tale of two cities? Imagine the opportunities a poor person who can’t pay the fee will forfeit while others advance?
“The opportunities a poor person will forfeit while others advance”…are we still talking about pickleball (exercise)? Or some other progressive nonsense?
1. Did you read the part of the article about Community Play? That seems to solve your problem.
2. It is very expensive to run this park and offer so many resources to the public. If they can fool people into parting with these admittedly huge amounts to play pickleball, that windfall will hopefully be used to pay for a lot of other programming that everyone can enjoy.