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The pickleball craze is coming to the Big Apple’s most famous outdoor space.
New York City-based CityPickle will transform Central Park’s Wollman Rink into a 14-court pickleball venue that will be open to the public from April 7 to Oct. 9. The company will begin taking reservations this coming Friday.
The courts will allow for 196 hours of available playing time each day.
Players can book a court for $80 per hour at off-peak times and $120 per hour at peak times. CityPickle will also offer paddle rentals for $6 each, but players are welcome to bring their own.
“Right now, the way many people play is they bring their own nets to scraps of pavement around the city,” CityPickle co-founder Erica Desai told the New York Times. “They can’t schedule ahead. They’re playing on surfaces that are cracked. In Wollman, not only will we be able to accommodate a lot of people, they’ll be playing on a professional surface.”
Major League Pickleball — a 24-team pro league — also plans to hold exhibition matches at the Central Park location this summer, per Bloomberg.
Wollman Rink was operated by the Trump Organization from the 1980s until 2021, when then-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio moved to end the city’s contract with the company.
Wollman — which operates as an ice skating rink in the winter and warm-weather recreation space in the summer — is now run as a joint venture between Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the Equinox Group, and Related Companies.
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