End of an Era for Skating on Carnegie Lake?

This post in part seeks to correct misinformation widely disseminated about how often skating has been permitted on Carnegie Lake in the past. See further down.

By chance, I was listening in on this week's Princeton town council meeting via Zoom when the subject of ice skating on Carnegie Lake came up. Turned out that town staff had quietly removed Carnegie Lake last year from the list of potential skating sites. Council member Mia Sacks expressed surprise that council hadn't had an opportunity to discuss the decision. 

Staff explained the logic behind discontinuing what had been a long tradition of permitting skating on the lake when the ice reached sufficient thickness. Parking has become limited; staff testing of the ice involves some risk; and emergency services had concerns about the large size of the area between Washington Rd and Harrison Street where skating had traditionally been permitted. Fear of litigation, and fear that social media would draw large, unmanageable crowds, also drove the decision.

Though the concerns had some logic, there was some misinformation put forward in support. Staff knew of only one time since 1996 that skating had been allowed on the lake, but this blog documents five: 2007, 2009, January 2014, February, 2014, and 2015. 

One council member claimed people had died from skating on the ice, but offered only the recollections of a relative as evidence. It's very easy to research this sort of thing. The Papers of Princeton website allows word searches of all papers published in Princeton going back to the 19th century. By typing "death" "carnegie lake" into the search box for Papers of Princeton, 78 results come up. Among the 78 I could find no incidents of death from skating on the lake. There was only one incident of death while ice skating, in 1943, when two boys had unfortunately strayed off of Carnegie Lake and skated upstream on the Millstone River. I found five instances of drowning in the lake or canal, unrelated to skating, between 1985 and 1996, and one obituary that told of the deceased's fondness for skating on the lake. If anyone finds documentation that contradicts the above, please contact me.

There was reference at the meeting to a skating injury on Carnegie Lake that had resulted in a lawsuit. The Town Topics reported that the lawsuit dated back to 1996. Skating has been permitted five times in the thirty years since, so it's not clear why the lawsuit would be taking on relevance now.

At the council meeting, four members of the public described how skating on the lake had been a magical experience for them as kids and adults--one of the things that had made living in Princeton special through the years. They pointed to the new parking garage not far from the lake, and asked if the empty Butler tract could be another parking option. One made the argument that during extraordinary cold spells like this, some people will skate on the lake regardless, so it would be safer to provide safe boundaries.

One unspoken cause of the policy change could potentially be the loss of institutional knowledge. The gap between 2015 and the deep cold of 2026 was long enough to weaken a tradition that, like all traditions, is sustained through repetition. Who on staff could remember all the trouble spots to check and mark off on the lake? Then again, there was an eleven year gap between permitted skatings in 1996 and 2007.

Skating has been permitted at a small pond at Smoyer Park, but it's not the same.

Though it's conceivable that policy will be reassessed, and at least a small part of Carnegie Lake will be opened to skating if and when we get another sufficiently cold spell in the future, what are the chances that the wonderful tradition will ever be fully revived? For those who weren't around to witness past permitted skatings on the lake, here's a taste of the magical experience that would be missed. 

From Winter in Residence, 2007:

The arctic air blew in and Winter, quietly working in its favorite and most deceptively magical medium, transformed a pretty but otherwise cold and unwelcoming lake into a dancefloor, public square and sports arena. Working without a budget or publicity, nor any tools beyond serendipity and physics, Winter drew thousands of local residents to a spontaneous community festival down at Carnegie Lake.

Rows of cars filled the field; skaters of all abilities plied the wondrously smooth ice. One skater propelled himself with a homemade sail. A baby took to the ice in a baby carriage. Along with some pickup hockey games, there was a slippery, slidey game of soccer played slow-motion in boots.