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An extreme vision - Boston Globe - Editorial
March 15, 2004
AS IMPORTANT as the Rose Kennedy Greenway will be to knitting downtown
Boston to its harbor, other Big Dig-related parklands also have
the potential to make Boston a greener city with more inviting opportunities
for outdoor recreation. For young people in particular, one of the
most appealing proposals is to create a one-acre skateboard park
in a larger riverfront park area in Cambridge between the Science
Museum bridge and the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge.
The park, a brainstorm of the nonprofit Charles River Conservancy,
would be a magnet for skateboarders, in-line skaters, and acrobatic
bikers. Complete with pipes, bowls, a snake run, ledges, and rails,
the park would be laid out under one of the ramps of the Zakim Bridge,
whose shade makes the site unsuitable for grass or trees.
The athletes would practice and perform in a site of inspiring
beauty. Above them to the east would rise the obelisks and cables
of the Zakim Bridge; to the south, the skyline of Boston; to the
west, the Science Museum. The foreground would be the Charles River
Basin itself as it laps around the New Basin Parklands, with its
greenery and kayak-launching sites.
The proposal envisages a skatepark with the potential to serve
as a venue for extreme sports competitions and exhibitions. A similar
facility in Louisville, Ky., has become such an attraction for athletes,
their families, and spectators that a local hotel runs a shuttle
bus to it. The Cambridge site would have some parking space but
would also be accessible from four nearby T stations.
Today, the "parklands" are a no-man's land of temporary
Big Dig buildings, piles of gravel, and earth-moving equipment.
It takes vision to see it as a place that could lure skateboarders
away from Copley Square and strollers away from the Esplanade, but
vision is what the Conservancy has in spades. To bring this project
to fruition, it will also need approximately $1.1 million for design
and construction. Pledges for less than half the total are in hand.
At a time when sedentary habits threaten the long-term health of
American youth, the Charles River Skatepark would be a good fit
in the new Boston common created by the river and harbor parks.
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