Inspired by Central Park’s ice-skating rink in New York City, Etta Eiseman Steinberg donated the majority of the funds needed to build this rink in honor of her late husband Mark. The rink, designed by Frederick Dunn and Nolan Stinson, opened in 1957 and is located on the eastern edge of Forest Park, adjacent to the Central West End neighborhood in St. Louis, and is overlooked by the Barnes-Jewish Medical Complex. Located just south of Delmar Boulevard, a thoroughfare that separates the white population of south St. Louis and the largely Black population of north St. Louis, the Steinberg skating rink was historically one of the least segregated public spaces in the city. During the 1960s and 1970s, an era when clearances and urban development deepened spatial and socioeconomic divides between the city’s white and Black communities, the Steinberg skating rink was a popular destination for all St. Louisans and remains so to this day.
The rink covers 27,600 square feet, making it the largest ice rink in the Midwest. Other outdoor activity spaces punctuate the perimeter of the rink, including a modest collection of chess tables at the northeastern corner and a firepit at the southwest corner. Trees including river birch and bald cypress surround the rink’s edge and provide a wind barrier. A paved walk encircles the rink and is interspersed with park benches and works of sculpture.
The rink’s interior public space, the Steinberg Pavilion, has maintained its iconic early Modernist decor. As part of the 1995 Forest Park Master Plan, the rink continues to undergo renovations and maintenance to allow it to operate all year.
