Roll With It, Baby - NYTimes.com It was 10 p.m., and the floor of the basketball court in a Bedford-Stuyvesant Salvation Army center was a blur of roller skate-powered counterclockwise motion. As hip-hop blared and flashing lights illuminated the hoops, a woman in cheetah stretch pants skated as if running in place in front of a large fan, her hair blowing behind her like a video vixen's. Those who weren't as comfortable on eight wheels slowly circled the outskirts, their arms outstretched for balance like pelicans about to take off. The inner circle was reserved for the hard-core skaters showing off their skills. A novice fell hard, and one of the rink attendants blew his whistle and blocked an oncoming train of interlocked teenagers from barreling over her. It was a Wednesday night at Crazy Legs Skate Club, a weekly dance party on wheels that attracts all levels of the roller strata: first-wave roller disco denizens who never gave up the fight, a new generation of skate devotees and a smattering of hip Brooklynites. "Crazy Legs is special," said Dyana Winkler, a filmmaker. You have hipsters coming off the G train, mixed with Central Park skaters in their 60s and 70s, and African-Americans who have developed a style that's very different from disco and very different from what the Central Park skaters do. So it's this melting pot. Apart from this converted basketball court, there are no other rinks in the city. It's forced these communities that would have been separate to come together. Ms. Winkler and her partner, Tina Brown, are making a documentary, "United Skates," tracking the evolution of skate dancing, including the multiday "skate jams" taking place across the country. "Roller skating isn't dead," Ms. Winkler said. It's just gone underground. "It's a lifestyle," said Lance Byrdsong, 19. We go skating three times a week, like to Hot Skates in Long Island and Branch Brook in New Jersey. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that read "I Would But It's My Skate Night." Roller disco is well past its heyday of the 1970s and "80s, when celebrities like Michael Jackson and Cher would lace up, and there was a deluge of skate-themed films and episodes on TV shows like "Charlie's Angels." Skating plateaued in New York, a victim of high rents and liability insurance. And what could have been the death knell of skating in the city was the closing of the three area rinks, each with tight-knit communities: the Skate Key in the Bronx in 2006 and the Roxy in Chelsea and the Empire in Crown Heights in 2007. "All of us went into fits of sadness," said Lynna Movingstar, an actress, who was taking a break from the Crazy Legs floor. She had silver fingernails, and her hair was pulled up into a Mohawk braid. "I've been skating 18 years," she said. Skating was like going to church. When the rinks were open, I skated seven nights a week. Crazy Legs helps fill the void. Sebastián Silva, 34, the Chilean director of "The Maid," is a three-year habitué. "It was like I found heaven," he said. Two blocks from home, the most fun, diverse, funky crowd ever, and I can skate. You go in circles for three hours. It's pretty abstract. Mr. Silva recently shot a scene for his next film, "Nasty Baby," at Crazy Legs. An autobiographical comedy-drama about a gay couple trying to have a child, it stars Kristen Wiig. "I was going backwards with a camera on my shoulder, dodging people," he said. It will have to be subtitled because they wouldn't turn the music off. The footage is so unique. You can't make that up or hire extras like this. He added, "Kristen is a really good skater." THE MAN BEHIND Crazy Legs, Lezly Ziering, is, at 80, no ingénue. A former professional dancer, he was responsible for the skate nights at the Roxy (and held his skating wedding reception there). The rental skates at Crazy Legs have "Roxy" scrawled across them in marker. He sat behind a desk taking the $10 entry fee. He was wearing purple jeans and had a chain around his neck with a silver roller skate pendant. A braided rattail hung out of his purple cap. When Mr. Ziering saw the Bed-Stuy basketball court for the first time, he knew it was special. "I walked in and said, "Oh my God, this is it," " he said. Mr. Ziering had to give up skating after an accident last year when he was coaching a women's roller derby team. "A big buxom gal was skating backwards very fast and not looking," he said. She blindsided me and broke my femur. He still teaches skating and has no plans to retire. I don't know what I'd do with myself. Alcohol isn't served at Crazy Legs (there is enough falling without it), but there is a table where beverages, incense, roller-mix CDs and iridescent green hot pants are sold. "Roller skating has a 10-year cycle," said Jim McMahon, executive director of Roller Skating Association International, a trade group of rink owners. It rises to a peak and slowly goes down and rises. We're not on the peak; we're on the rising. Still, be wary of asking a hard-core skater at Crazy Legs if this is some sort of comeback. "Renaissance - that's crazy," said James Singley, 50. It hasn't gone anywhere.