Lasker Rink, dedicated as the Loula D. Lasker Memorial Swimming Pool and Skating Rink was a seasonal ice skating rink and swimming pool at the southwest corner of the Harlem Meer in the northern part of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. Designed by the architects Fordyce & Hamby Associates, it operated from 1966 to 2021. Lasker Rink was demolished after its final season of operation and is to be replaced by a new facility known as the Harlem Meer Center in 2024. History Early history In 1962, the New York Parks Department announced plans to build a swimming pool and ice skating rink at the northern part of Central Park, to cost $1.8 million. The rink would be built above the mouth of the Loch, at the southwestern corner of Harlem Meer. The facility was named for Loula Davis Lasker (1886-1961), a philanthropist and social worker, and the daughter of German immigrant Morris Davis Lasker and sister of Albert Lasker, who donated $600,000 to help build the facility. The work shrunk the Meer from to , and the Meer was temporarily drained to facilitate construction of the project. The rink was supposed to be completed in mid-1966, but flood damage caused by poor drainage prevented the pool from opening as scheduled. Lasker Rink opened on December 22, 1966. Lasker Rink was known to New Yorkers as being less crowded and less expensive than Wollman Rink, Central Park's other ice skating rink at the southern end of the park. Over the years, Lasker and other facilities in northern Central Park, which was surrounded by poorer neighborhoods, were generally not as well maintained as the areas in southern Central Park, which had more tourists and were generally wealthier. Several events such as a 1969 ice-skating competition were intended to draw public attention to the facility. Trump and M&T concessions In 1986, real estate developer Donald Trump made an offer to New York City mayor Ed Koch to rebuild at no cost the deteriorating Wollman Rink in return for a franchise to operate the rink and an adjacent restaurant to recoup his costs. As part of the agreement to keep operating Wollman Rink, Trump agreed to also take a concession for Lasker Rink, and the Trump Organization won concessions for the rinks in 1987. The Trump Organization held the concession until 1995, when M&T Pretzel Inc. outbid Trump for a six-year