Quality
- The Shatepark Chronicle
THRASHER
Since 1981
Volume 43 No. 169
Palo Alto Skate Facility
How a Park
Was Won
By JJ
Se
Palo Alto, California
Democracy isn't dead yet, at least not
in Palo Alto, where local skaters banded
together and petitioned the city council
with pickets, patience and initiative.
"All we did was ask," says Dan
Kuhnz, a Palo Alto local. "We got thirty
or forty people together and went to
some meetings."
Kuhnz makes it sound easy, but it took
the skaters months of attending city
council meetings and picketing local
schools before the politicians finally
agreed to study the problem.
"There were a lot of people against it
at first, especially those living nearby,
saying that noise and mayhem would be
attracted to the sight," says Roland Ek-
strand, project engineer of Greer Park.
Despite initial opposition, the skaters
kept their cool and stuck to their guns.
"They came out en masse," Ekstrand
says. "They came to city council
meetings, they came to Architectural
Review Boards, they came to com-
munity meetings. They kept lobbying for
it and finally everybody listened.
"They put in some good arguments.
followed the rules of order and were
well-behaved."
Landscape architect Ken Wormhoudt.
who designed the Derby facility in Santa
Cruz, also drew up the Palo Alto plans.
"I worked as a consultant with the firm
designing the whole thing," said Worm-
houdt. "I met with the Public Works De-
partment in Palo Alto, and they had no
idea what they wanted, so I met with
some young skateboarders. We went
TUESDAY APRIL 9th, 1991
10 Years
THRASHER
of Excellence
FREE, BRAH
PLAYGROUNDS EMPTY
While swingsets flap in the breeze and basketball courts sit vacant, Greer Park in Palo Alto sees heavy usage. How long it will last is up to the behavior of local skaters.
through the whole process and decided HELPFUL HINTS
what they wanted."
Wormhoudt then constructed a clay
model and presented it to the skaters,
who immediately approved the design.
Unlike Derby, which is a snake run
where skaters start from the top and ride
to the bottom, Wormhoudt designed Palo
Alto as a place where skaters could keep
carving around and around.
"Derby is different. Kids skate through
it then go back up to the top and wait to
go again," he says. "I wanted to design
something they could go around
continuously. I was pretty sure they
would develop a pattern and use it clock-
wise or counter-clockwise."
The run itself is three inter-connected
concrete bowls with an island in the
center. The skaters ride the bowls just as
Wormhoudt predicted.
"I was very satisfied with the design.
They were using it. The only problem is
when it starts getting really crowded,
there are skateboarders flying every-
where," he says.
One local said on weekends there's no
room to lean up against the fence. The
park's popularity indicates how much of
a demand there is for public skate-
boarding facilities.
"It's real crowded, up to 100 people at
a time," says Ekstrand. "With this kind
of a demand, there's definitely a need.
We're just hoping it'll eventually drop
down to fifteen or twenty skaters."
Locals worried when a sudden rash of
geekoid graffiti appearead on the bowls a
few weeks prior to their completion. The
wall scrawl was obviously of a non-
skater nature, and after a meeting, local
officials grudgingly agreed that graffiti
was part of the environment.
"The city is uptight about the graffiti.
I'm not," says Wormhoudt. "It gets worn
off anyway. Besides, it doesn't show;
nobody can see it because it's down in
the ground."
Barring any unforseen problems, Palo
Alto will remain a free haven for skate-
boarders, a place to go instead of the
streets. It stands as a monument to
democracy in action, a group of skaters
standing up to be counted.
"If other people would do this, they
could have the same thing," says Kuhnz.
Public Park
Getting the Most from Parks Rocks Radio
By Abigail Vas Burlin
Chronicle C
Finding a skatepark is only half the
battle; all kinds of other impediments
can and will pop up between you and the
coping of your dreams. The following
are some helpful hints to remember
when taking off on a quest for those
fresh skatepark horizons
1. Bring Your Own Pads.
Skateparks rent notoriously dirty,
smelly and otherwise less than im-
maculate pads. If push comes to shove,
and you have to shell out bucks for those
required elbow covers, make sure to
shower afterwards and scrub off any
fungus growing among us.
2. Get Notarized
Call ahead. Most parks require paren-
tal consent before youngin's under eigh-
teen can ride in full accordance. So, if
neither Ma nor Pa is coming along for
that romp through the parklands, bring a
notarized note that gives the go-ahead
and bears you parent's signature. Or
better yet, write ahead to the park and fill
out the forms by mail.
3. Get Copers
Some parks demand plastic grind de-
vices to shield their precious cope from
the harsh teeth of metal that chomp
down upon it. Occasionally, security is
slack and grinding raw can go unpun-
ished. Other times, bare trucks can bring
stiff penalties, like loss of privileges or
the dreaded "Booted for LIFE"
4. Bring Refreshments
Most places provide limited amounts
of soft drinks and possibly juice. Just in
case they don't, it doesn't hurt to bring a
few cans of your favorite beverage and a
gallon or two of mountain spring water.
It's always cheaper to pack a lunch.
Besides, a small snack between runs
replaces some of the energy and vitality
that sweats from your smelly body.
5. Leave the Spray Paint at Home
Nobody digs vandalism, especially
owners of skateparks. If you are one who
sprays the scene and ruin things, you
deserve to get caught not only by the
proprietors but also the locals who skate
the place everyday.
6. Get Good Directions and a Map
There's nothing like getting lost when
you know paradise is somewhere in the
neighborhood. Get detailed directions
and trace the route out on a map before
embarking on a lengthy excursion.
7. Introduce Yourself to the Locals
Nobody knows the town like those
who live there, especially the cool pools
and local banks. A hip loke can also
suggest where to eat, who to meet, what
Fred Smith's Skate Hut indoor skatepark in Providence, Rhode Island, provides a
plethora of plywood ramps and a social gathering place for local skaters to enjoy.
places are beat and where to hear good
music for your feet.
8. Sample the Local Cuisine
When in Rome, eat pizza. McDonald's
has the same spew everywhere you go.
To really savor the flavor of a place,
chow down on some of the regional fare.
9. Look Before You Leap
Once again, the locals know the best
lines. Check out the favorite pump
routes before you expound on them.
10. Wash Your Pads
At the end of that long trip, after
you've come home from a crusade of
coping conquering, before you kick
back, reflect and lie to your friends about
how high your airs were, do us all a
favor and wash your pads.
Kettering, OH
By G
D
A new indoor municipal ramp park
going up in Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of
Dayton, will rock with music direct from
a college radio station.
"The facility will feature music piped
in from one of the local colleges," says
Patrick Radachi, arena aquatic manager
for the facility. "It'll be cabled in, so it'll
be a high quality sound."
The indoor park will be part of a huge
recreational facility that includes a water
park, running track and courts of all
kinds, he says. Ramps and street ob-
stacles will go inside a currently unused
ice arena.
"It's ideal because it's a concrete slab
the size of an ice arena," he says.
Insurance Companies Often
Discriminate Against Skaters
My Archit
Special the Chronicle
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Insurance companies claiming that
skateboarding is a dangerous activity
don't have any studies on which to base
their accusations, says Boyd Kraemer,
assistant city manager.
"People have been led to believe that
this is a hazardous sport," Kraemer says,
"but I haven't found any statistical data
comparing the injury rate of skateboard-
ing to other "legitimate sports.""
Football, wrestling, hockey and base-
ball all carry high rates of injuries, he
says, "But we have no trouble getting
insurance for baseball diamonds."
Images of lawsuits and hospital bills
are automatically associated with skate-
boarding, Kraemer says, but he believes
these fears are largely unwarranted. "It's
a generalization that's written into
policies by the underwriters without any i
statistical data," he says.
Skaters don't have a group to represent
them, but every other special interest has
some organization to lobby for them.
Skaters need to learn to represent them-
selves, too, says the assistant city man-
ager, but most skaters are too young to
vote and don't have faith in the system.
"They don't know how important it is
to organize politically, and not to get too
impatient," he says. "They have to learn
to work within the system."
Skaters Make Their Own Park
A
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Upset that the conservative mayor
refuses to build a public park, even
though skaters in this affluent city have
gone through legal, democratic channels,
skaters are holding impromptu protests
"Since nobody would build us a park.
we decided to build a portable one and
take it to the park for everyone to enjoy.
says local Marcus Solomon
When police officers arrived and asked
who owned the ramps, the skaters
replied, "Everybody."
When the police asked who built the
ramps, the skaters replied "Everybody."
The city is now "officially ignoring"
skaters because officials can't do any
thing and don't want to be held liable
because there is no safe place to ride.