After nearly six decades on the ice together, Jerry and Tally Leonard stepped onto the Lloyd Center rink one final time before the Portland mall permanently shut its doors.
Thousands of people packed the largely vacant mall on August 8 to say goodbye to one of Portland’s most beloved community landmarks.
Jerry and Tally Leonard, both former competitive figure skaters, had built their entire relationship around the rink that first brought them together in 1967.
Their love story began when a skating coach told Jerry about a young woman in Portland who “skated just like him,” prompting him to drive from Yakima to meet her.
After spending an entire day skating together at Lloyd Center, Jerry said he knew immediately that he had found someone truly special.
The couple went on to practice together at the rink multiple times a week for nearly six decades, making it what they described as their “happy place.”
At 6:45 pm, just fifteen minutes before the mall’s doors closed permanently at 7 pm, Jerry and Tally Leonard took their final farewell skate across the ice.
As the last skaters on the rink, the Leonards symbolized something far larger than one couple’s story, representing the generations of Oregon families shaped by the facility.
Skaters and community members say the Lloyd Center rink introduced countless Oregon families to figure skating and hockey over more than 60 years of continuous operation.
The closure comes as the Lloyd Center property moves into a redevelopment phase, with current plans notably failing to include any provision for a year-round ice rink.
For Portland’s skating community, the loss of the rink represents the end of a gathering place that had served as a cornerstone of the city’s recreational and cultural life for generations.
The redevelopment of Lloyd Center marks a broader shift in the fortunes of American shopping malls, many of which have struggled to remain viable in an era of shifting retail patterns and changing urban priorities.
