Wheel-A-While Roller Rink (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the roller rink once stood from 1973-2006 and a laser tag facility from 2007-2024. The building has been renovated into a children's daycare facility.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Springfield Connection newspaper:

One Last Skate
Franconia Roller Rink hangs up skates after 33 years.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006

On the final weekend at the Franconia Roller Rink, skaters performed their favorite roller skating tricks one last time. They launched into single and double pattern, “crazy legs,” “drop the bomb,” “eagle spread,” “toe jam” and “shoot the duck.” Legs were flying, wheels scraping and smiles flashing as everyone strutted their stuff on roller skates.

“You’re getting a lot of exercise, but you don’t know it,” said Tylor Hewette, 15, a Lee High School student. “We know everybody here.”

Alexandria resident Sharon Foster, 35, strapped on a pair of skates just to let loose one final time.

“I love it here, it reminds you of your childhood,” Foster said.

But as the skates glided across the wood floor, the feeling was in the air that the skaters' rink days were limited. After 33 years, the rink closed its doors, making way for a new tenant, “Shadow Land,” and a new breed of entertainment that centers on lasers and technology. Monday, Jan. 16, was the last day for the skating rink.

Manager Charles Lowe was at the helm since the rink opened in 1973. “Monday’s going to be the last day,” Lowe said. “The kids these days have so many things to do today.” When the skating rink opened, choices were limited for a Saturday night. “Skating, bowling, movies,” said Lowe. “That’s all there was to do before,” he said. In recent years, roller skating took a back seat to computer games, laser tag, soccer leagues and competitive cheerleading, to name a few.

Shadow Land Laser Adventure Centers are described on their Web site as “family entertainment/corporate training facilities that use Darklight technology developed in London.” Players enter a “gothic style arena,” decked out in suits with infrared detectors, radio links, and LCD readouts. Shadow Land currently has centers located in Columbia, Md., Gaithersburg, Md. and Chantilly.

BUT LOWE remembered the good old days at the rink. “We had Cher in here way back when,” he said. “We had a 1,000 people that night, you couldn’t even move.” That was in the 1970s when roller derby was popular. Years later, “Tipper Gore had a birthday party,” Lowe said. It was wall to wall limos out in the parking lot.

Local skaters Dennis and Lisa Ray even met at the rink and later married. “I was trying to date her friend. She was looking at me with these big eyes,” Dennis Ray said. This was 1982 when he worked at Fort Belvoir and moonlighted at the rink. Both worked on and off at the rink through the years too and now their kids were skating on the same worn wood floors.

“This is like an icon, it’s hard to take,” Dennis Ray said.

But in the Franconia, Alexandria area, skating was the thing to do for a number of years. “Anybody that grew up in this area has been here,” Lisa Ray said.

Lowe remembered a number of couples that had met at the rink. He rattled off a list. “Kim and Paul, Janie and Jimmy, Paul and Angie ... there were at least 10,” said Lowe.

“It’s gonna be missed,” said Dennis Ray. “It was more or less a dating scene.”

Lisa Ray compared the rink to the Frozen Dairy Bar in Falls Church, or the Vienna Inn — both old staples on the Northern Virginia landscape. She reiterated her husband’s analogy. “It’s an icon,” she said.

Lowe helps manage three remaining roller rinks in the region, in Pasadena, Laurel and Seabrook, Md. Other rinks under different management are still operating in Manassas and Stafford too.

Sharon Foster, 35, doesn’t care if she has to travel to skate. “You just can’t stop rollerskating, you go further out,” she said.

The word on the rink closing was getting out to all the skaters in the area, and the weekend was ripe for reminiscing. Springfield resident Mike Cherry, was on top of the social strata for the final days. “Whoever is in town, is definitely coming up here,” he said.

Ray remembers being the skateguard when Cherry was a teenager, and blew his whistle at him a few times. Now Cherry’s son Michael, 4, donned a pair of skates. “He’s hooked on it now, so I guess I’ll be going to Stafford, or Manassas.”

Springfield resident Danny Klinkert got in a last skate session with his daughters Danielle, 8; Delaney, 5; and Dianna, 4. The girls dressed like Pippy Longstocking, a favorite literary character. “It’s a shame it’s closing down, we were coming here every Wednesday night,” Klinkert said.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Spring 2014 edition of the "Franconia Legacies" newsletter published by the Franconia Museum:

Cher In Franconia
by Carl Sell

Cher’s appearance in early April of this year at the Verizon Center brought back memories for many Franconians of July 16, 1979 when the young performer came to roller skate at the Wheel-A-While facility located behind the gas stations near the McDonald’s and Edison High School. She had just finished a performance at the Kennedy Center and wanted to relax on her skates, something she often did when at home in Hollywood.

Her visit also was billed as a fund-raiser for UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) and promoted by a local disk jockey. The word spread quickly and traffic on Franconia Road was at a standstill. Fans began arriving at 5:30 p.m. and by the time Cher arrived at 11:45 p.m. you couldn’t get near the rink. Inside was just as bad as fans jockeyed to get a glimpse of the young star.

“I’m going to get killed in that crowd,” Cher was quoted as saying in the Washington Post as she pulled on her tiger-striped skates in the rink office. She did join the throng and took one lap around the rink before announcing ”it wasn’t going to work” because “someone was going to get hurt.”

Lynne Haas Gomez, a current member of the Museum, recalls she and a friend tried to attend “but couldn’t get near the place.” They and hundreds of others were stuck in the parking lot of the rink and nearby businesses. Another young fan was quoted in the Post as saying that she just couldn’t believe Cher was roller skating in Franconia.

After all the hoopla was over and the crowd thinned, Cher went back to Washington to continue her six-night rock and roll extravaganza at the Kennedy Center. According to the promoters, a portion of the admission to the Franconia event, which drew a crowd of skaters and gawkers four times as large as usual, went to UNICEF.

Sonny Bono and Cher combined as a married couple for the highly popular Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour on television in the early 1970s. They separated in 1974 and were divorced a year later. Both went on to separate spectacular careers before reuniting for a resumption of the Sonny and Cher Show in 1976. But the magic was gone and the show folded the following year.

Bono went on to an acting career and entered politics, eventually becoming a member of the United States House of Representatives. Cher became a Grammy Award winning singer and won an Academy Award as an actress. She would give a tearful eulogy at Bono’s funeral after her former husband died in a skiing accident in 1998.

Cher, the former Cherilyn Sarkisan, was born May 20, 1947 in El Centro, California. She first met Bono, 11 years her senior, in 1962 at a Los Angeles coffee shop. The two became friends and eventually recorded the number-one hit single record “I Got You Babe” that catapulted them to instant fame. Later, Cher would do the same on her own with songs such as “Half Breed” and “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.” She became famous for her daring costumes and unusual outfits (or lack thereof) as well as her musical talent. Thirty-six years after that brief appearance on roller skates in Franconia, she remains a star.

Cher wasn’t the only famous performer to appear in Franconia. One of future Superstar Dolly Parton’s first appearances was with Porter Wagoner’s country music band at Edison High School on September 16, 1967, in a benefit for the Franconia Volunteer Fire Department. Earlier, country stars such as Roy Clarke, Grandpa Jones and others performed at the old Sylvia Theatre at Ward’s Corner on Franconia Road. Music stars such as singers Chubby Checker, Barry Darvell, Ronnie Dove and the Ink Spots, along with guitarist Link Wray, made cameo appearances at teen dances at the original fire department building. The Harlem Globetrotters played before an overflow crowd at Hayfield High School and the King and His Court four-man softball team packed them in at Edison.