Midway Plaisance Rink

Some of the information listed below is outdated. The current rate for skating is $ 3 per person, even if you bring your own skates. If you need to rent skates, you pay $ 7 per person.
Yesterday we had a terrible experience on the ice. There are «potholes» of sorts and I was almost seriously injured due to this. Even after resurfacing the ice can be dangerous.

Rental is only $ 6! free if you bring your own skates. nice view, convenient for Hyde Parkers!

This is a Park District Ice Rink, and it’s great.
It costs $ 6 to rent skates, but there is no cost if you bring your own skates.
They have a nice field house with clean bathrooms, and a snack bar.
There is free and easy street parking here, so it’s to bring the family.

I love this rink. And the price– free with skates.
They take care of the ice pretty well, it’s one of the better outdoor rinks in my opinion. A lot of outdoor rinks aren’t good enough to play hockey on without getting annoyed every time the puck jumps– this rink holds up pretty well.
I dig the music– a weird mix of bon iver indie and classic ice rink pop.
The workers are great, if it’s a strangely warm winter like it was last year call ahead and they’ll tell you the ice quality, and they give it to you straight.
I wish they were open a bit later, but I guess night skating isn’t everyone’s jam. That said there’s not much stopping you from hopping the boards after they close…

This ice rink is one of those little known secrets. Everyone wants to wait in line and go to the crowded ice rink in Millennium Park. But this place is great — in fact it’s better than the one in Millennium Park once you consider the atmosphere.
This ice rink is free (and only $ 6 bucks to rent skates). That’s the best deal around. It is almost never crowded. I used to play broomball on this rink and the ice was always in good condition. The staff is nice and the crowd is a mixture of families and college students.
The ice rink is in the middle of the University of Chicago campus with gorgeous architecture in every direction. It’s also on the Midway Plaisance — which by the way is where Monsters of the Midway came from. Hyde Park is one of the most gorgeous areas of Chicago, and one with a lot of history. This ice rink sits right in the middle of it. (And for those who don’t live in th area, there is free street parking all up and down the Midway Plaisance so parking is pretty easy, especially outside of business/​school hours.)
Although sometimes it’s a struggle, I bring my friends down from the northside to check out this ice rink — and Hyde Park generally. This Midway Plaisance ice rink is in a great location and it has a wonderfully relaxing atmosphere.

Cheapest skating I’ve found in Chicago! Free admission and $ 6 for skate rental (used to be $ 4, womp). My friends and I chose to come to this one to avoid the congestion that is most other northerly rinks (Millennium Park, etc.). Also, this rink and I have been in a relationship for years now since I used to take my students here years ago (who I was hoping to avoid when there with my friends, ha). Though we didn’t stay as long as I initially expected, ’twas a good time. Wasn’t too crowded at all on a Monday afternoon. They’re open 12−7p I think most weekdays and they have concessions, so you can get coffee or tea or what have you, if you’re so inclined.
I’d say more people should check it out, but then y’all would ruin why I come in the first place! ;)

Bah-​Humbug. Being in a Scrooge (ish) mood as of late, there aren’t many things I’m eagerly looking forward to this holiday season. However, the Midway Ice Rink reopening is one of them.
For starters, I always enjoy trekking back to Hyde Park/​U of C. The cost is cheap — I believe skate rental was only $ 5 and skating was Free. I’ve even gone once where the entire night was free. Oh — -and they had free hot chocolate and snacks. And they were tasty. :)
It wasn’t overly crowded when I went — perhaps that’s because it was freezing cold AND snowing that first night I went.
If you’re looking for a great place to go ice-​skating (w/​out the crowd of Millenium Park)…this is it!
They reopen the day after Thanksgiving this year. I will be sure to make my way over there. Now. I just need an accomplice.

I’ve done Habitat for Humanity a couple times, packed food at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, worked at a soup kitchen, and painted walls at schools.
My favorite type of volunteering? Hands down it is interacting with underprivileged youth, especially if it is during some kind of recreational activity. Case in point, taking a group of South Side public school kids ice skating yesterday. For many of them it was their first time.
At the beginning, some of the kids couldn’t even stand on the ice in their skates but an hour later they were slowly making their way across the rink with huge grins on their faces. «Beth, look at me, look at me!» We even got an exciting game of «tag» in with some of the more experienced skaters. It was the most fun I’ve had in a while and well, the most exercise too.
On days when kids are off school, it will be crowded with little kids falling left and right. I was even the front of a conga line of a group of kids I didn’t come with. Good times.
$ 3 skate rental and it was free to skate. Ice was in good condition. Minus a star because the rental skates are kinda crappy. Unhappy employees but if I had to deal with stinky skates all day, I wouldn’t be happy either.
There were some bad falls but everyone was able to walk back to the metra. Success!

As a player on the University of Chicago’s women’s club ice hockey team, I call this rink home. And it’s not a bad rink at all for that.
Here are the positives: it’s one of the few rinks on the southside, and it’s close to the University of Chicago. On a winter day, it’s so easy to say «I’m bored, let’s go skating.» Skate rentals are cheap – $ 5, and usually free to skate. You can often get skating lessons from members of the team. The staff is very helpful. Rat Hockey on Monday and Wednesday nights is from 7 – 9 PM, and at $ 5 is some of the least expensive you’ll find in Chicagoland. Furthermore, it draws a good crowd that ranges from U of C-​affiliates to off-​duty cops. The rink is open with pretty regular hours once it gets cold. There are frequently events sponsored by the University of Chicago that are open to everyone, including a hot chocolate night and free skate every Valentines Day.
They used to never Zamboni, but now the ice is in good condition. You can even get cheap skating lessons here!
Negatives: First of all, there is no website, and finding contact information for the rink is a bit of a hassle, though thankfully it seems that someone’s posted it. You have to call to find out if the rink is closed for whatever reason. It’s a good recreational rink, but if it’s going to be more than that, the boards need to be fixed up, and they need to have a concessions stand that’s actually open.
A generally good local rink.

Now that we live on the south side, it’s a joy to use the Midway. It’s home to soccer games, great sledding in the winter, a Park District maintained ice skating rink, and generally plenty of open space for lots of activities.
My office has a barbeque out here at least once a year, but I’m prompted to review today because we took full advantage of the winter weather and went sledding and made a snowman. Lots of clean snow, easy parking on the weekends (not during the week when the university is in session), and convienent.
No chance in hell your kid will sled into the street, the hills send them down into the middle of the parkway, not toward the street. Bonus!

Finding new Chicago gems is so much fun.
This well designed, 5 year-​old Olympic-​size rink is located on the Midway Plaisance, a few blocks west of the Museum of Science and Industry. It’s run by the Chicago Park District. While located on the South Side (often a prohibitive schlep for a Northsider like me), it’s still delightful and well worth a trip down there. Since it was Sunday, venturing down there was no problem on Lake Shore Drive. It just took a few minutes.
One of the kids who works here told me that when the City was doing the excavation for this place, they found the old timbers which had served as the foundation for George Ferris’s first Ferris Wheel, which had been one of the most popular attractions at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Apparently, the rink now sits where the Ferris Wheel was located.
The setting for this rink is part of what makes it special (the free, easy parking is a bonus, too). Set at the South end of the University of Chicago campus, at the division between Hyde Park and Woodlawn, the views of the historic campus buildings from virtually anywhere on the rink give the place a certain civility and historic sense which are quite appealing. Have a look:
The relative newness of the place has some advantages: the Field House doesn’t have that decades old piss smell that many of the Chicago Park District Field houses have. The architecture of the Field house is modern yet plunked down in an historic setting, and it’s very clean here (even the bathrooms). Here is a view of the Field House:
And a few more bonuses for it’s relative newness: it was not the least bit crowded (and is yet little known or used according to one employee), and most of the rental skates are virtually new if not brand new. The skates we used were brand new; no rickety side-​to-​side ankle wobbling like you experience in many worn out rental skates.
Best of all, it’s a place where life’s precious, fortuitous moments like this one can happen:
For you Northsiders like me, take the Drive south to 57^th street; west past the Museum of Science and Industry to Stony Island, and then south to the Midway Plaisance; go a little west from there; you can’t miss it. It’s address (1130 N. Midway Plaisance) is deceptive, since the mile-​long MP runs from the eastern edge of Washington Park on Cottage Grove Avenue, to the western edge of Jackson Park on Stony Island Avenue. How it got a «north» address in this town is beyond me.