Ron Kraut, our New Yorker of the Month, January 2006

Ask a New Yorker: What’s your name and what do you do?

Ron: Good morning. My name is Ron Kraut and I’m the director of ice maintenance here at The Pond at Bryant Park. Also I’m a New York City representative for ice rink events. We sell and install the ice map 2 system made by Calmac in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. This is the state of the art temporary and seasonal ice rink system.

Ask a New Yorker: Gotcha. I’m loving you. So, figure skates or hockey skates?

Ron: Well, I’m an ice hockey player. I was the first general manager at the Sky Rink at Chelsea piers. I met the Chelsea Piers Management Inc through playing ice hockey at the old 450 West 33rd Street. Any New Yorker remembers Sky Rink which was relocated from Madison Square Garden back in 1963 when Madison Square Garden was taken down to build an office building on 8th Ave. And the new Madison Square Garden was built over Penn Station. So I’m an ice hockey player, but I’ll tell you if you’re a beginning skater or learning to skate, we always recommend that you use figure skates to learn to skate because the blades are a little longer. They extend behind the heel and they provide more stability for your learning skaters. So you’ll see over here at The Pond at Bryant Park…

Ask a New Yorker: I’m with you on that, that’s cool, that’s cool. Who is your favorite hockey player?

Ron: You’ve got to be kidding me. Is that a joke? There’s only one god father of soul and there’s only one great one. And that’s Wayne Gretsky. Everybody loved Wayne Gretsky. He played here in New York City for the New York Rangers for about three seasons. And having him and Mark Messier on the ice for the Rangers might have been actually the greatest for ice hockey players ever.

Ask a New Yorker: So what’s the name of that machine that polishes the ice?

Ron: Well everybody knows that you blow your nose with a Kleenex. That’s the generic name for a tissue. And the generic name for an ice resurfacing machine in this country is the Zamboni. Now curiously, Zamboni was invented by Richard Zamboni in Northern California. Now since the invention of the original Zamboni several other manufactures have developed an ice resurfacing machine. We feature here at Bryant Park an Olympia which is made by the Canadian Resurfix Company. Although all the kids scream, “Look at the Zamboni! Look at the Zamboni!”

Ask a New Yorker: Where did you learn to ice skate?

Ron: I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. We had a sand pit down at the end of the hill at the end of the street. The sand pit in the winter would fill up with water and freeze. I learned how to skate with all the neighborhood kids flopping around with no instruction playing hockey with somebody else’s equipment.

Ask a New Yorker: I was one of the kids that always needed to test the ice before it was ready and fell in up to my waist. How about you, ever fall in?

Ron: Actually, not before, but after because in the Spring time when you pushed the snow to the edges of the pond, what happens is the ice starts to melt. So you had to almost wade through the water to get from the hockey rink in the middle of the pond to go home. So, by the end of every day we would be soaked up to our waist.

Ask a New Yorker: So what do you think of global warming?

Ron: Well, global warming, I’m going to assume it’s a real phenomenon and that things are really warming up. I will say it positions ice rink events perfectly. We can make an ice skating rink in the middle of the desert. We have 500 tons of refrigeration in the back making this beautiful 100 by 170 ice skating rink here. I believe the New York Times just said that The Pond at Bryant Park is the most beautiful rink in all of New York City.

Ask a New Yorker: And global warming?

Ron: I’m going to assume it’s a real deal. My friends who have been to Patagonia say the glaciers are melting and that is just all part of our population explosion world wide. I just don’t see any way around it. We are just going to continue to warm up and warm up for the next couple of decades and there’s not a dog-gone thing any body is going to do about it.

Ask a New Yorker: Well on that note I wish a warm and happy 2007! Thank you.

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