I had just one challenge left: building the skating rink fast and building it right. If I failed—if I was even one day late, or one dollar over budget—my plan was to pack my bags and take the next plane to Argentina. There was no way Ed Koch or anyone else would ever let me live it down.
Since I myself knew absolutely nothing about building rinks, I set out to find the best skating-rink builder I could. Logic suggested that the best place to look was Canada. Ice skating is to Canadians what baseball is to Americans—the national pastime. The top builders, I figured, were probably the companies that built rinks for Canada’s professional hockey teams. Sure enough, everyone I talked with agreed that a company called Cimco, based in Toronto, was the best of the best. Among other projects, they’d built a rink for the Montreal Canadiens. I got their top guy on the phone, and I began with a very basic question: “What does it take to build a great outdoor skating rink?”
He gave me a very quick course in rink construction. The key choice, he said, was which ice-making system to use. The city had originally decided to use a relatively new technology in which the freezing agent is Freon. The rationale was that a Freon system requires less electricity, which translates into some minor energy-cost savings. The disadvantage of the Freon system is that it’s far more delicate, temperamental, and difficult to maintain—particularly in a public facility where personnel turns over frequently. Among ice-skating facilities that used the Freon system, my friend from Cimco told me, at least one third had experienced problems.
The other option, which had been used in hundreds of skating rinks for decades, was a brine system, in which salt water is circulated through the pipes. It costs a little more to run than a Freon system, but the advantage is that it’s highly reliable and incredibly durable. The Rockefeller Center Skating Rink has used a brine system since it opened in 1936 and has never experienced a major problem.
By the time I finished my first call, I’d made up my mind to use a brine system in rebuilding the Wollman Rink. The city, in fact, had finally come to the same conclusion. The only difference was that they first wasted six years and millions of dollars.
I soon discovered that the city’s incompetence on the Wollman Rink project had extended to every imaginable detail, large and small. On June 16, one week after I’d made my deal to take over rebuilding the rink, a city report was released on mistakes made at the Wollman Rink over the past six years. The study had taken fifteen months to complete—four times what I’d given myself to totally rebuild the rink. Worse yet, while the report provided endless examples of incompetence, it came to absolutely no conclusions about who was responsible for the fiasco and what could be done to avoid such failures in the future.
The one thing the report did provide was an astounding chronology of sloppiness, indecision, incompetence and sheer stupidity. If it weren’t so pathetic, it would have been almost comical.
The city first closed the rink for renovations in June 1980. By the time plans had been drawn and the bidding process completed, almost a year had passed. In March 1981, work finally began on installing approximately 22 miles of the very delicate, expensive copper piping used in a Freon cooling system. In the meantime, however, the Parks Department had second thoughts about where to locate the compressor room and what sort of refrigeration equipment to use. Even as the piping was being installed, all work was halted on the equipment that would eventually be needed to operate the rink’s cooling system.
Even if the ice-making equipment had been finished and installed, the design of the rink was such that it never had a chance of working. Specifically, the base of the rink was designed on a pitch, so that it was approximately eight inches higher at one end than at the other. The pitch had a purpose. The fact that it ended up being eleven inches was an accident. The point of the pitch was that during the summer the city hoped to use the rink as a reflecting pond, and apparently a pond reflects light better if its base is sloped. In the winter, however, that same sloped base would cause a problem.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that when you try to make ice under those circumstances, there are only two possibilities. The better one is that ice will form, but that because the depth of the water varies, the consistency of the ice won’t be uniform. The worse and far more likely result is that the water at the deeper end of the rink simply won’t freeze at all, no matter how powerful the ice-making machinery.
Even that issue soon became secondary. In July, two months after the laying of the pipes began, a torrential rain flooded the rink, depositing a thick layer of silt on the newly laid pipes. It wasn’t until September that the Parks Department finally got around to hiring a crew to repair the damage.
In the meantime, a new dispute had emerged within the Parks Department about how the concrete sidewalk surrounding the rink should be designed. The result was that the pouring of all concrete—including the concrete meant to form the rink’s base—was held up nine months while a debate over the sidewalk raged on. So, unfortunately, did winter. For nine months, the newly laid delicate copper pipes were exposed to horrible weather. There were major snowstorms and flooding. In addition, because copper is quite valuable, vandals climbed over the fences and tried to cut off pieces of the pipe to resell. By the spring, it was as if those twenty-two miles of pipes had been through a war. Nonetheless, not one person thought to check them for possible damage.
In June of 1982, two years after the rink was first closed, the concrete was finally poured over the untested copper pipes. Contractors often use a vibrating machine when they pour over uneven surfaces, since it helps prevent bubbles from forming. However, the vibrating had an unforeseen result: it began shaking loose the joints of the copper pipes. At the same time, the contractor had even bigger problems to contend with: he had underestimated by a great deal how much concrete it would take to cover the rink. The key to pouring concrete is to do it all at once, on a continuous basis, because that’s the only way to ensure it will adhere and mesh uniformly. Rather than interrupt his pour, the contractor decided to dilute his concrete mixture with water. It was a recipe for disaster.
Less than a week went by before cracks began appearing on the surface of the newly poured concrete slab. Not coincidentally, the cracks were concentrated at the end of the rink where the cement content had been diluted, and where the vibrating machine had been turned off.
Delays in deciding where to locate the refrigeration equipment prompted another problem. By the time the city made its decision—after sixteen months of deliberations—the contractor originally hired to install the equipment insisted on a “modification” of his original agreement. Specifically, he demanded more money. Those negotiations took another twelve months, and it wasn’t until July 1983 that the city approved a new contract—on the contractor’s terms. The completion date on installation of the refrigeration equipment was pushed forward yet again, to September 1984.
In the late fall of 1984 the system was finally tested for the first time. It proved unable to sustain pressure for long enough to create ice because it turned out that there were leaks in the pipes beneath the concrete slab. Between October and December of 1984, six leaks were found and repaired. No luck. The system was tested again and still couldn’t make ice.
It was at that point that I called Henry Stern and made my first offer to take over construction of the rink. When he turned me down, I said, “Listen, would you like to walk over together and take a look, and perhaps I can at least make some suggestions?” A few days later, in the dead of winter, we walked over to the rink. I was shocked by what I saw.
There were literally hundreds of tiny cracks in the concrete slab. Worse than that, there were at least a dozen huge gaping holes cut into the slab at various places. When I inquired, I found out that the holes had been cut through the concrete in order to get at the leaks in the pipes underneath. Unfortunately, the jackhammers used to make holes in concrete are very violent, and the pipes underneath are very delicate. In the effort to get
at the leaking pipes, these violent men with their violent jackhammers actually made the problem much worse.
Right then and there I turned to Stern and said, “You have a major problem. You’ll never find these leaks. In the meantime, you’ll just create bigger leaks. Forget it. Start all over.” Henry tried to be polite, but it was clear that starting over was the last thing he’d consider.
In the spring of 1985, the city came up with a wonderful new idea. At a cost of $200,000, they hired an outside engineering consultant to study why Freon was leaking from the pipes, and to recommend solutions. The firm promised to have its report within four months. Nine months later—in December 1985—the firm announced that they’d been unable to isolate the cause of the leaks.
Nearly six years had now passed since the Wollman Rink was first closed for renovations. Nearly $13 million had been spent on the effort. The Parks Department finally concluded that the Freon system would have to be scrapped and replaced by a brine system. On May 21, 1986, they announced the new $3 million renovation plan and the eighteen-month timetable. That was when I finally convinced the city to let me take over.
By mid-June, when the Board of Estimate approved the deal I’d negotiated with the city, I had already begun work. One thing I discovered was that the city had agreed to pay a $150,000 fee to yet another consulting company, this time to provide recommendations about how to build the rink with a brine system. The city’s contract specified that the company, St. Onge Ruff Associates (SORA), would begin work on July 1, 1986, and deliver its report by the end of December. In other words, I had agreed to finish rebuilding the rink before the city was scheduled to get the report on how it ought to be done.
On the off chance that the consultants might have some intelligent suggestions, I decided to sit down with them. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by what I discovered: the two gentlemen who ran the firm were specialists in refrigeration but had never before been involved in building a skating rink. They hadn’t the faintest idea what it entailed. So much for their help.
I hired Cimco to build the refrigeration and piping equipment for the system and to advise me generally. To build the rink itself, I hired HRH, the construction company that had already built the Hyatt and Trump Tower for me and had proved themselves high-quality general contractors. In this case, they generously offered to do the work at cost. Meanwhile, Chase Manhattan, with whom I had a long banking relationship, stepped forward and offered to lend all the money for construction, again at no profit. It was the sort of project everyone could relate to and appreciate.
When I went to see the rink, things were even worse than I’d imagined. For example, there were gaping holes in the roof of the skaters’ house, and the result had been massive water damage to the interior of the building. But even the smaller things I noticed reflected the city’s approach to the job. For example, as I walked into the rink, I came upon a row of canvas sacks, abandoned and half covered by weeds. When I looked inside, I discovered that the sacks were filled with plants, which were once intended to be part of the new landscaping. Instead, they’d been left on the ground, unopened, and had died.
Just as I was making this discovery, a city worker walked by and stepped right on one of the few living plants on the site. He didn’t look back. In a way, it was a perfect metaphor: the rink being trampled by one of the people who was being paid to fix it.
The incident reminded me of a time, several years earlier, when I was walking by the rink on a beautiful summer day. It was about two in the afternoon, and there, right in the middle of the unfinished rink, were perhaps thirty laborers. Not one of them was working. I figured they were on coffee break. Perhaps an hour later, I walked past the rink again. The same men were there, in exactly the same positions, as if they were on a permanent siesta. I didn’t fully realize the implications of the scene at the time. Now I saw it as a symptom of the bigger problem at Wollman Rink: there was absolutely no one in charge.
Leadership is perhaps the key to getting any job done. There wasn’t a single day when I didn’t check on the progress we were making on the rink. Most days, I visited the site personally. I’d given myself six months to finish, and based on the city’s record, meeting that deadline would be a minor miracle. By my own calculations, however, six months actually left me a cushion of a month, in case anything significant did go wrong. If absolutely everything went right, I felt it was possible we’d finish the job in four months.
One of the first decisions we made was to build the new rink on top of the old one, rather than rip it out altogether. By the first of August, we were able to lay a level subbase for the new rink, on top of which we would install the piping and pour the concrete for a flat-bottomed rink. Cimco was busy building two huge, 35,000-pound refrigeration units. I hadn’t realized, when I offered to take on the job, how big Wollman Rink actually is. At nearly three quarters of an acre, it is one of the largest man-made skating rinks in the country.
Even before we began construction, we were besieged by calls from the press, seeking progress reports. Reporters who normally had no interest whatsoever in construction suddenly wanted to know the smallest details about the laying of pipe, the pouring of concrete, and the building of a compressor room.
After the first dozen or so calls, I decided to hold a press conference to answer everyone’s questions in a single forum. On August 7, with only the subfloor in place, we met the press at the rink. To my surprise, perhaps three dozen reporters, photographers, and cameramen showed up, including representatives from every local television station and both wire services. I had no earthshaking news to announce. All I could report was that everything was proceeding right on schedule and that we expected to be open by December. That was enough. The next day there were stories in every newspaper with headlines like TRUMP HAS AN ICE SURPRISE FOR SKATERS and TRUMP PUTS THE ICING ON WOLLMAN CAKE.
There were those who said I went a little overboard holding press conferences about Wollman Rink. Perhaps they’re right, but I can only say that the press couldn’t get enough of this story. At least a dozen reporters showed up for every press conference we held.
Nor did the story of the rink generate just local attention. Dozens of newspapers as far away as Miami, Detroit, and Los Angeles ran long pieces about the Wollman Rink saga. Time magazine devoted a full page in its “Nation” section to the story. It was a simple, accessible drama about the contrast between governmental incompetence and the power of effective private enterprise.
From September 7 through 10, we laid twenty-two miles of pipes. On September 11, a convoy of cement trucks arrived and we began a continuous pour that lasted ten hours. There was no shortage of cement. The next day, when the engineers checked to see how evenly the pour had turned out, it was perfectly level. On September 15, the newly built refrigeration equipment was installed in the renovated compressor room. The only obstacle left was the heat. On the day we poured the concrete, the temperature climbed to 87 degrees. It occurred to me that we were going to be ready for skaters before the weather was ready for us.
By the end of September, all of our ice-making equipment was in place. All we needed to test our system was a succession of four days during which the temperature stayed below 55 degrees. Instead, for two weeks, one beautiful unseasonably warm day followed another. For the first time in my life, I found myself wishing for winter.
Finally, on October 12, the temperature dropped below 55 and it stayed down for several days. On October 15, we conducted our first test of the new system, sending brine through the piping. There were no leaks and the pressure held. That night, following a rainfall, ice formed on the rink—beautiful, clear, long-awaited ice. It was almost four months to the day since I’d gotten approval to renovate the rink. We’d also managed to come in more than $750,000 under our $3 million budget. With the city’s blessing, we used the leftover money to renovate the adjacent skatehouse and restaurant.
During most of the construction, the city stayed out of our wa
y—in large part because I instructed my men to keep park officials off the site. When they did try to interfere, it invariably turned into disaster. As an example, after we’d finished the rink, a crew from the Parks Department showed up carting a small tree, which, they announced, the city wanted to plant in my honor. It wasn’t enough for one or two guys to handle the job. A crew of perhaps a half dozen men came, among them a park horticulturist to supervise the job. The tree itself was transported in a tractor with a back-hoe loader.
By total coincidence, I walked up to the rink just as the men were beginning to plant the tree. It happened to be one of the ugliest, scrawniest little trees you’re ever likely to see. I could have lived with that. What got me absolutely nuts was the way they were planting the tree. Just the previous day, we’d planted beautiful specimen sod all around the perimeter of the rink. It had rained the night before and the ground under the newly planted grass was soft. What do these men do but drive their tractor right over the new grass, completely trampling it. In a matter of minutes, these six men—most of whom weren’t needed in the first place—managed to totally destroy a beautiful planting job that had taken two days to complete and now would require three months to grow back in.
Around this time, I got a letter from Gordon Davis, the parks commissioner before Henry Stern. Davis wrote to say that as the person primarily responsible for the early problems at the rink he was “delighted and relieved to see how superbly [his] mistakes had been corrected.” I happen to believe that Davis was far from the only person responsible. But what struck me most about his gracious attitude was how radically it contrasted with that of Henry Stern.
Throughout the Wollman project, Stern took numerous opportunities to minimize to reporters what we were accomplishing. The Daily News, noting one particularly snide comment Stern made, snapped back in an editorial. “Try saying thanks, Henry,” they wrote, “It’s more dignified, under the circumstances.”
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