This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Editor's note • In this regular series, The Salt Lake Tribune explores the once-favorite places of Utahns, from restaurants to recreation to retail. If you have a spot you'd like us to explore, email whateverhappenedto@sltrib.com with your ideas.
Normandie Roller Rink had a brief but brilliant life in downtown Salt Lake City in a time characterized by classic skating and drive-ins. But the era, and the rink's history, was also marked by lingering segregation.
Owned and operated by Norman Douglas Groendyke (the "Norman D." for whom the rink was named), the Normandie opened its doors in 1950, surrounded by car dealerships in the area where the Grand America now stands.
Groendyke first fell in love with skating while working as a "skate boy" at Rolladium Roller Rink in Ogden. After years of skating competitively and working at rinks throughout northern Utah, he opened his own rink.
In a building on 600 South between Main and State Streets, Groendyke built the rink's wooden floor by hand, remembered his daughter, Shawna Garn.
Working from the middle out, Groendyke let his children skate on his work in progress.
"My brothers (Norman Jr. and Gordon) and I would go with my dad during the day while he was laying the floors for the rink. We had our skates and would skate on the little pieces of floor that he put down," she said. "It took him a long time to lay that floor all by hand, by himself."
The rink soon became a popular site for gatherings — dozens of Utah newspapers from the 1950s describe church groups, Girl Scout troops and birthday party guests visiting the Normandie.
But one group faced more restrictions than others: Salt Lake City's black community was invited to skate at the rink only on Friday nights (some say beginning at 10:30 p.m., others say at midnight).
"In those days, black people ... didn't have a place to go roller skating," recalled Billy W. Mason, according to the transcript of an oral history for Salt Lake County's Neighborhood House. "Oh, there was a Normandy (sic) Skating Rink on Sixth South and Main. The only time we could go roller skating there was from 12 o'clock at night until 1:00. One hour."
Tom Morgan, who worked at the rink as a boy, said he remembers black skaters bringing their own music, different from the waltzes and tangos usually played, and how they would race around the floor.
"They'd bring all their kids, their whole family," he said. "It was segregated at the time, but to me I didn't know it was segregation ... I just knew it was they came on Friday night."
Garn said her father didn't really want to segregate. "He had a lot of pressure not to integrate," she said.
Although the Normandie was always financially successful, Groendyke was no hard-bitten businessman, Garn said.
Himself an atheist, Groendyke was known for inviting wards and youth groups of the LDS Church to the rink. He would donate profits from the evening to ward building funds.
He also allowed any skaters who were competing to practice for free, any time they wanted, Garn said.
On one side of the Normandie was the original American Linen building, and next to it a row of small houses stood along a dirt road. Garn said the children who lived there would skate at the rink often.
"There were a couple of kids who lived down the street and they didn't have a lot of money," Garn said. "He never charged them. They could come and skate whenever they wanted."
Garn worked at the rink from the time it opened, when she was 8 years old. She sold candy and drinks, took coats in the cloak closet and sold tickets — which once almost got her shot.
With admission at 80 cents a person, the ticket booth was commonly full of dollar bills, Garn said. One evening, a man came to the booth and shot a gun into it, shooting to Garn's side and missing her. He demanded the money that was "everywhere" on the floor, she said.
But Garn did not oblige.
"I started screaming at him and telling him how bad he was," she said. The man never got the money.
Garn wasn't the only Groendyke child put to work. Rick Groendyke, Norman's youngest son, said he remembers mostly goofing off at the rink while his older siblings worked. But he would carry bags of quarters home, count them and deposit them in the bank.
Much like skating rinks today, the Normandie would have partner dancing and would host games — such as a contest like musical chairs, during which 12 spotlights would come on at a random time. Anyone who wasn't in a spotlight would have to sit out.
"That's just what you did back then," Morgan said. "You'd go to Hire's Root Beer, Normandie Roller Rink and maybe the dance hall. There wasn't a lot to do."
But the success of the Normandie wasn't enough to keep it going. The lease on the rink eventually ran out in the early 1960s, and wanting to use it for car part storage, the owners of the building would not renew.
"It was doing so well — I was actually shocked when they closed the doors," Garn said. "I thought, 'Wait a minute, you can't do this. This is our life! This is what we do!' "
In the rink-turned-auto-shop, mechanics would don skates and roll around the old rink to retrieve and deliver parts, Morgan said.
The Groendykes eventually opened Rocket Bowl Bowling Lanes in Brigham City, which Norman Groendyke ran for nearly 20 years.