The city has construction plans for Mount Prospect Park, once the site of a lookout station for George Washington’s army. About 40,000 square feet of the 7.79-acre park are to be turned into one of the largest skateboarding spots on the East Coast.
Some nearby residents are fighting the plan. [...] They say the poured-concrete skateboarding facility would take up precious green space in a city that does not have enough of it.
— The New York Times
A total of four skatepark designs are scheduled to be built in the Bronx and Brooklyn, courtesy of The Skatepark Project (or TSP). Costs for a new park at the contested Brooklyn location are about $100,000.
The Mount Prospect Park location calls for 40,000 square feet worth of concrete to be poured, leading to local protests recently. Hayley Gorenberg of the group Friends of Mount Prospect Park told the Times, “Paving green space isn’t acceptable to the community, and it’s not the way for New York City to look forward to a more resilient future. It’s backwards thinking.”
Tony Hawk is also involved in Peterson Rich Office and OSD’s new adaptive reuse design for the Shepherd Gallery and Art Center in Detroit.
9 Comments
I'm a longtime skater and I love skateparks, but you have to listen to the neighborhood people in every situation. NYC has some parks already. If they are sub par then rework them. Using up green space for another park is not cool. There are some underutilized parks out there. Owl Point (?) is the name of one if I remember correctly. That park is really good but not maintained as I recall. Go skate that ! Yew!
Hey fellow skaters, hows it going. I'm totally not a local NIMBY commenting here. Anyways, no skateparks! Yew!
How much you wanna bet the people complaining aren't even from the city
Paul, you are referring to Owl's Head Skatepark which is nowhere close to the desired location of this park (40 minutes by train) and has obstacles that are extremely dated and irrelevant to what people are skating these days.
I am a lifetime skater and an outdoor enthusiast, I understand the argument for preserving "greenspace" but I am telling you as someone who has actually been to this park the argument is dishonest in this situation.
The area in question is a flat, mowed grass field that is currently being used as a dog park. A skatepark would allow the space to actually be utilized by humans and allow children and adults of all classes to have a space for recreation.
The people making this argument don't care about green space. A dog park is good for property values, a skatepark is not. I get not wanting a skatepark by your property, but call it as it is, don't try to hide behind a dishonest argument for greenspace and sustainability.
Fair enough.
Maybe you don't like the location of Owl's head but somebody must live there right. As for terrain, I remember bowls there (though it was full of debris cuz people don't take care of their parks there apparently ). With real coping! None of that steel pipe drab.
Bowls with real coping NEVER get old and if people aren't into it they are ignoring skating's inception. If you don't have a front side grind on vert it's time to learn.
Hell yeah. Apologies if I came off as a transition hater. It is sick that Owl's Head exists. My point was more that most kids are skating street these days as it's just way more accessible.
could make it out of stone instead. That would be sustainable.
Older I get the more it is clear that people dont like it when other people do things that they aren't interested in. And will spend time making sure they can't do it in front of them.
It's not just NIMBY, it's NUMBY or DUMBY or something worse.
It's a fundamental undermining of shared civic values and civic education.
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