Local Teens, Get Ready to Roll:
Plans for Skatepark Under Way

May 28, 2007
By Thomas Grillo

In many places, they are considered a neighborhood nuisance.

For years, skateboarders have been flying into the air and then onto sidewalks, streets, public art, building entrances and pedestrians – sometimes while eluding police.

That could all change next year when construction commences on the Charles River Skatepark. The $2.3 million, 40,000-square-foot park will be the largest facility of its kind in New England.

Located under a ramp of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, a focal point of Boston’s $14.6 billion “Big Dig” highway project, the spot will protect skaters from the weather and keep them out of public spaces where people and property can’t be harmed.

The single-acre park will offer skilled skateboarders and novices a place to practice the technical elements of the sport such as bowls, pipes and ollies. Other park features will include restrooms, lights, fencing and viewing areas.

To date, the Charles River Conservancy – a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of parklands, as well as the lead sponsor of the park – has raised $1.3 million for the project. A gift of $100,000 recently came from the Peter and Carolyn Lynch Foundation. Peter Lynch is the former Fidelity Magellan Fund manager.

“We’re more than half the way there in terms of fund-raising,” said Renata von Tscharner, president of the Charles River Conservancy.

Nancy Schön, the Newton-based sculptor best known for her bronze “Make Way For Ducklings” sculpture in the Boston Public Garden, was one of the first boosters of a skatepark. After Schon learned that local teenagers were skateboarding on her “Tortoise and Hare” sculpture at the Boston Marathon finish line in Copley Square, the white-haired grandmother was ready to do battle. Fearing the metal wheels would damage the delicate sculpture, Schön got into her car and prepared to confront the teens.

“I was ready to tell these kids to lots of things that I can’t repeat,” Schön said. “But as I talked to them, I saw the faces of my children and grandchildren. These were athletes who simply wanted to skate, but have been chased out of every place and sometimes had their skateboards confiscated by police.”

After Schön met with skateboarders, she joined with von Tscharner to find a suitable location along the Charles River. Together, they lobbied the state Department of Conservation and Recreation to help find a site for the park. They first looked in Charlestown and then settled on an unused parcel in Cambridge. The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which owns the land, has approved the concept. The project is one of many to convert 40 acres of former Central Artery land into parks.

“We had a single vision and joined forces and we have worked hard to make this park a reality,” said Schön. “We are all working like mad to make this dream come true. Together we will make this the most important, vibrant, exciting skateboard park ever.”

‘A Fascinating Sport’

State Sen. Jarrett Barrios, D-Cambridge, helped convince legislators that the project was worthy of state support. He was inspired to take action in favor of the project following his receipt of a letter from a constituent.

“I haven’t been on a skateboard in 20 years,” said Barrios. “But I got involved after I received a two-page letter from 16-year-old constituent who said he was always getting into trouble with police and just wanted a place to skateboard and hang out with friends. That convinced me to make this happen.”

Barrios is still trying to help close the $1 million funding gap. He urged taxpayers to write, call or meet with their state representatives and senators to support more money for the initiative.

Zachary Wormhoudt, a landscape architect and park designer, said skateboarding is not just something teens do after school, it’s a part of who they are. It’s critical that the park be developed with their suggestions, he added.

A similarly sized park is located in Kentucky, Wormhoudt said. The Louisville Extreme Sports Park was built along a river and was part of the city’s riverfront development. It’s open 24 hours a day, he said.

“It’s a bit bizarre,” he said. “You can go there at 2 a.m. and see grandparents sitting in lawn chairs watching their grandchildren skate. People love to watch. It’s a fascinating sport to do, but it’s almost equally fascinating to watch.”

The first skateboard originated in southern Califormnia in the 1950s. The earliest skateboards were crude homemade equipment made with a two-by-four and steel wheels from roller skates. In the 1985 film “Back to the Future,” Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox, is featured using an improvised skateboard.

By the mid-1960s, skateboarding went mainstream and fiberglass products began to appear. In the 1970s, polyurethane skateboard wheels appeared, advancing an improvement in traction and performance, and the sport grew in popularity.

In the 1990s, a new wave of skateboarding was sparked by pay-as-you-skate parks with concrete ramps and steel edges, allowing skateboarders to show off their skills. But since few skateparks were available to skaters at that time, street skating pushed skaters to seek out shopping centers and public and private property as their place to skate.

Today, there are more than 12.5 million skateboarders in the world, according to American Sports Data and the number of skateparks is growing. Eighty percent of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and nearly three-quarters percent were male.

(c) 2007 The Warren Group Inc., 280 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210. All rights reserved.