The Last Song

World on Wheels opened in 1981 on Venice Boulevard in Mid-City Los Angeles and grew into the heart of the city’s Black indoor skating scene, built on hip-hop and R&B. It hosted KDAY broadcasts and earned a shout-out in Snoop Dogg’s “The Way Life Used to Be.”

It closed in June 2013 after its owner filed for bankruptcy. In July 2017 it reopened with investment from rapper Nipsey Hussle and promoter Tommy Karas.

It closed again in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The rink also appears in the HBO documentary United Skates.

Holiday Skate Center opened in 1973 at 175 N. Wayfield Street in Orange: a 19,015 square foot rink on a 1.5 acre site.

Its final sessions were on August 2, 2026. The lease ended June 30 and the property owner chose not to renew it. A proposed 46-townhome project would need the site rezoned from commercial to residential, and a community petition opposed it.

This is not Holiday Skating Center in Victorville, which is open.

Jerry Curran spent two years building Skate Depot with his family, in a business plaza across from Los Cerritos Center, and opened it in 1980. At 24,000 square feet it was a little bigger than a professional hockey rink.

On its busiest nights about 500 skaters came, some from as far as Lancaster, San Diego and Las Vegas. Thursday nights were old-school R&B, and schools held skating parties and fundraisers there.

The rink officially closed on August 24, 2014. Curran said the plaza’s new owners, CenterCal Properties, were not interested in renewing the lease. Curran’s other rink, Skate Express in Chino, is still open. Skate Depot appears in the HBO documentary United Skates.

Skateland opened on January 30, 1958 at 18140 Parthenia Street in Northridge, as Northridge Valley Skateland. Richard Fleming bought it in 1968, and his sons David and Mike later ran it. The rink was a family favorite in the San Fernando Valley for more than sixty years.

It closed in March 2020 when the pandemic shut it down. After nearly eight months closed, the Flemings decided to close for good and sold the building to Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission, now Hope the Mission.

The site became the Trebek Center, a 107-bed bridge-housing shelter that opened on May 12, 2022. It is named for Alex Trebek, whose gifts helped buy it. Hope the Mission honors the rink’s past with a “Skateland to Hopeland” project that lets people sponsor a wooden plank.

Orbit Skate Center opened in 1972 in Palatine, Illinois, across from Arlington International Racecourse. ABC7 Chicago called it the largest in the Midwest.

Its last day was March 31, 2018, with a going-out-of-business party that evening. Owner Sandra Levin wrote on the rink’s website that the cost of doing business in Cook County was too high to sustain a facility of that size for roller skating. She pointed to a $5,000 monthly utility bill, $138,000 of floor repair and what she called aggressive property taxes.

The building was sold to new owners who planned to change its use.