Guess Who’s Playing Pickleball at Wollman Rink Nowadays

It pricey, but the summer pickleball courts in the southern end of Central Park in what was once the winter skateland known as Wollman Rink is attacting big and an increasingly younger crowd. Reserving courts at the facility, which is run by City Pickle, comes at a steep price—$120 per hour on weekends, with the price only dipping to $80 per hour during midday on weekdays. But that hasn’t stopped New Yorkers and out-of-towners alike from trying their hand at the sport that’s swept the nation.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, pickleball wasn’t as young as it is today. When Richard Porter, the CEO of Into Pickleball Magazine, got involved with the sport, he saw a much older demographic. “The median age of the recreational player was 66,” he said.

Three years later, “it’s grown even more with young people.” Nowadays, he says the median age is 33. “Kids play. There are college teams. The best female player in the world is 17.”

As the world shut down in 2020, pickleball was a way to exercise outdoors with others, all while keeping a safe distance. Even the rules of the game—which cordon off a central “No-Volley” zone, which is also referred to as “The Kitchen,”— mean that players are able to play together, while physically separate. As Porter explains, it really took off because “every age can play it.”

“It’s fun. It’s a unifier! It’s healthy. But to be really good takes time, so a low floor but a high ceiling.” In Porter’s words, it’s “perfect.”

On recent day Bob Wunderlich, a former mayor of Beverly Hills, and his wife, Andrea Spatz, sat in the shade near the pickleball courts at Wollman Rink cooling down after their game. They were in town to visit family, they said, and thought they might as well try out the new pickleball courts. The high prices were surprising, though.

“We play pickleball at home, at a court three blocks from our house,” Wunderlich said. The price back on the west coast is “actually $10 an hour as opposed to the $80 an hour here in Manhattan.”

Across the country, the rise in pickleball’s popularity has not only meant higher prices, but a veritable turf war over the use of public space like tennis and basketball courts. In Manhattan’s Stuyvestant Town, the former paddle tennis courts were converted to pickleball courts several years ago, and more recently three pickelball courts cropped up on what was once a full length basketball court. Uptown, at Carl Schurz Park near Gracie Mansion, a once open play area was converted to three pickleball courts and recently was given a new coat of paint less than a year after the Parks Department converted the former open space. Meanwhile, a nearby basketball court has been neglected for years, although the Parks Dept says it plans to repair the basketball court.

Some of the contention arose over pickleball’s heightened noise-level. Angry parents at one Greenwich Village playground got the sport banned entirely, mainly because they felt it was crowding out a younger kids’ playground. But pickleball courts are growing across Manhattan from the West Side piers to a recently opened all season indoor rink in Manhattan across from Madison Square Garden.

For Wunderlich and Spatz, though, Beverly Hills seemed to adopt the sport quite quickly with less acrimony than in Manhattan.

“It’s interesting,” Spatz mused. “The city as a whole doesn’t adopt change very quickly. But for some reason, pickleball came, and it’s something that instantly binds the community together.”

“In other communities around us people don’t like the noise,” Wunderlich added. “That’s actually not been much of an issue in Beverly Hills.”

The couple had just finished a singles match—which was quite an accomplishment. “Both of us had some injuries, some surgeries.” Spatz explained. They had only gotten back to the sport about a month ago.

Wunderlich was weary about sharing the score from the day’s game. “We did fine for us,” he said. Spatz looked at him with a knowing smile. “Singles favors my husband,” she explained. He hesitated when asked whether he had won the game. “Of course,” Spatz said, with a chuckle.

Inside the facility, where the skate rentals and food court would be operating in the winter, a coach for City Pickle sat by the front desk looking decidedly younger than many of the players.

Jake Lantis, 17, acknowledged he is still in high school, but secured his current position by, among other things, showing an outsized dedication to the sport.

“I was playing every day, seven days a week, eight hours a day,” he said. “Literally, I was here from opening to closing. I just got hooked.”

He didn’t have to pay for all that time, he explained. His rapidly increasing skills—and ability to make connections with the other regulars—meant he was able to dive head-first into the sport, without breaking the bank.

Nowadays, he’s paid to play, teach, and facilitate games between players of all skill levels.

Shahin Akter, 24, on the other hand, came to work for City Pickle without the intense love of the sport that Lantis did. She’s learned how to enjoy it though.

“I had never heard of pickleball—ever, in my life—before working here,” she said. “I really thought of it as ping-pong and tennis having a baby—that’s exactly how I describe it to people.” When she does play, she doesn’t even follow the rules, she explained with a smile. “I just play to hit the ball and have fun.”

City Pickle’s Wollman Rink courts will continue to be open—for beginners, experts and even former mayors—until October 2024 when it turns back into a winter wonderland skating rink.