ICE SKATING RINKS - THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE. Report of a Study Made by Engineering Service Department, A.M. Byers Company, Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Ambridge, Pennsylvania: A.M. Byers Company, [circa 1965].. [circa 1965].. Very good. - Quarto, 11 inches high by 8-1/2 inches wide. Softcover, bound in stapled wraps titled with a black & white illustration of the Yale University Hockey Rink with exposed piping on the front cover. The corners of the covers are slightly creased. 32 pages, profusely illustrated throughout. Very good. <p>From the Skating Library of Arthur N. Foxe, with his stamp on the front endpaper. A psychiatrist and criminologist, Dr. Foxe was an avid collector of skating books and even published a skating bibliography.<p>A typed letter signed by R.D. James, manager of Engineering at A.M. Byers is laid in as well as a four-fold flyer listing the company's eastern distributors.<p>The report includes summaries of the company's studies of the Rockefeller Center Plaza Rink in NYC, the Chicago Stadium, the St. Paul Municipal Auditorium in St. Paul, Minnesota, The Chandler Park Rink in Detroit, the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston, Texas, Madison Square Garden, and so on.<p>Producers of Wrought Iron, the A.M Byers Company opened its plant in Ambridge, Pennsylvania in 1930, shortly after the start of the Great Depression. The company was known for its Byers Process of manufacturing wrought iron to assure production of the metal in quantity while maintaining quality control and uniformity. A multi-ethnic employer, the company drew on a work-force of unemployed coal workers and others affected by the depression, hiring many first and second-generation immigrants. The fire, smoke and sparks from its furnaces and stacks were an early attraction along Route 88. Though the company's business dwindled briefly in the mid-thirties, it boomed again during the war thanks to defense contracts. Post-war production slumped and the company eventually closed in 1969.<p>Scarce.