The Echo of Blades, the Echo of Coming Home

On most mornings, Stormy McNair pushes open the doors of the Davis Center at the Harlem Meer with the same rhythm she’s carried through Harlem her whole life. For her, this place is not just where she works, it’s an extension of the Harlem streets that raised her, a space where the community’s stories are made and shared as naturally as they are on the neighborhood’s stoops and sidewalks. Now, as Senior Manager of Programming Partnerships at the Central Park Conservancy, she has returned to this corner of her childhood—as a steward of the Conservancy and as a bridge between Central Park and the community that raised her.

“I was born in Harlem. Raised in Harlem. Still live in Harlem, raising my children,” Stormy shares. “Everything I know—family, schools, friendships, even the dentist—is here. I do all that I can within the community.” Harlem, in her telling, isn’t just a backdrop but a kind of connective tissue. It’s the fearless splash of color in the clothes people wear, the declaration of self when walking down the street, the stop-and-start rhythm of errands interrupted by a dozen reunions in the span of a few blocks. It’s the departures, and always the powerful pull to return. Harlem is where strangers become kin.

For Stormy, the old Lasker Rink and Pool site was once the stage for all that closeness. She remembers Girl Scout swims at the pool in summer, skating in winter with her family, and the mixture of pride and pain in her father’s watchful presence. He fell hard on the ice once and never skated again, but he kept bringing her, insisting she learn. “He knew I loved skating so much,” she recalls. “He wanted me to have that joy.”

The Lasker Rink and Pool center was beloved despite its flaws. To Harlem, it was still theirs: “Our pool. Our rink. Our place.” But as the years passed, Harlem’s relationship with Central Park was weighed down by a heavy shadow. For many, the Park felt less like a refuge than a reminder of exclusion. Stormy remembers the Central Park jogger case of 1989 vividly; the Exonerated Five were her peers. Her father, furious and afraid, told her, “You've got to stay out of that Park. It's not for us.”

That shadow is finally giving way to light, a quiet reconciliation decades in the making. For more than 40 years, the Central Park Conservancy has worked to heal and reimagine this landscape: restoring its woodlands and watercourses, rebuilding its playgrounds and paths, and rekindling a sense of belonging. The Davis Center marks the largest investment in Central Park and stands as the culmination of the Conservancy’s decades-long restoration of the Park’s north end. It isn’t a fortress dropped into Harlem but a space that opens itself to the community, framing the water, wildlife, and woods that surround it. Its design speaks in gestures of care: granite that flows seamlessly from path to lobby, green tiles that echo the Park’s canopy, glass walls that dissolve the line between building and landscape.

And this winter, the rink returns. At last, Harlem families can lace up skates in their own backyard. The Davis Center now stands as a true community hub, where ice-skating and hockey are pathways to connection, learning, and joy. More than half the schedule is reserved for community skating, a deliberate act of giving the ice back to the people. Whether it’s someone discovering the thrill of skating for the first time or a seasoned hockey player chasing the puck, every program is rooted in inclusivity, growth, and belonging. “It goes back to making sure Harlem feels welcome,” Stormy says. “To skate again with your people, that’s powerful.”

She recalls George, a young man who plays on Central Park North Stars special hockey team. During construction, he passed the site daily, peering through the fences. When Stormy skated with him during a test run before the Davis Center opened, he hugged her: “Thank you for all that you’ve done. Because this is absolutely beautiful, and I can't wait to come out and play hockey,” he said. Stormy had tears streaming down her own face. “This is what it’s all for.”

What excites her most isn’t just the rink, but the memories it will hold: a child’s first glide across the ice, families laughing through falls, the ritual of returning season after season until the space itself feels like home. Stormy knows how deeply her own childhood memories of skating shaped her, and she takes pride in helping create that same joy for today’s families. These moments, she says, become part of a family’s story—remembered, cherished, and eventually passed down like heirlooms. “If I could talk to my younger self at the rink,” she reflects, “I’d tell her: Take it in. You wouldn’t believe how important this place will be to you later in life.”

That same promise of memory and belonging drives her work at the Conservancy: reconnecting her community with the Park, step by step.

This rink is more than ice. It is a reclamation of belonging; a gift carried from one generation to the next. Stormy thinks of her father—his pride, his insistence that she learn to skate just because it made her happy. “I wish he were here to see this,” she says. “He would be so proud. Of me. Of the Conservancy. Of Harlem.”

This winter, the Harlem community will step onto the Davis Center ice, making their first strides, holding hands, finding balance. And with each glide, they’ll be writing a new chapter—one of joy, resilience, and the simple, but remarkable act of skating at home. Again.

Hong Vu is the Associate Director of Editorial at the Central Park Conservancy.