JUST SAY NO TO SHITTY SKATEPARKS
WORDS BY PARKER
PHOTOS BY SEAN BROWN
 

Right now skateboarders are living through the second skate park boom. The thing is, most of the parks going up around the country are built by contactors that are clueless. Usually it’s the result of a group of city parks department fucks slapping together some piece of shit design that they see as a way to get skaters off their backs and off the streets without seeming like pricks, but in the worst cases it’s a result of a great plan being blown by a contractor knows nothing about skateboarding. These images were sent to us by a reader in New England. The company that built the parks is called Scituate Concrete Pipe.

I’ve been bitching and moaning about these city fuck ups for years; then I had an epiphany. It came while I was at the San Pedro skatepark, getting served under the bridge by the new bowl. Pedro is far from perfect but it was built by skaters, renegade style, and is super fun. I’d just been handed my ass, courtesy of some lumps on the hip, and was sitting, dazed, on my bottom, when it hit me. Why is it that I love Pedro so much, when, if a professional contractor had built it, I’d be complaining about all the flaws?

Well, it’s because we’ve earned it. Not me specifically, I’ve never done so much a lift a shovel there, but skaters, as a community. There’s a big movement going on right now to build your own spots. Usually these are nothing but a lump of concrete against a wall, or, more commonly, a jersey barrier, but, if you’ve ever had the opportunity to skate a spot that you or someone else has built, then you know how fun it is. It’s fun even though it might suck by professional building standards.

I’ve decided that I won’t complain about parks anymore. Fuck ‘em. All they really do is encourage a more family friendly version of skating, and that’s something I can do without. I don’t know how many sessions have been soured by a parent yelling at me for snaking their little snot nosed brat, or how many times I’ve been sickened by the sight of some bleach blonde soccer mom slut yapping away on her cell while the tumor she farted out five years ago plays turtle in the bottom of the bowl. Even better is the burnt-out old fart who uses my local park to teach large groups of kids how to skate, despite the fact he can’t get a grind on a three foot quarter pipe. From now on I’m all about spots that skaters have built. I’m even going to start building one myself.

Picture it, everywhere you look, spots made by skaters with a bucket of quikcrete, slapped up in the dead of night. It would be so sick, it makes me moist just thinking about it. I mean hard, yeah, like a big ol‚ anaconda. So, fuck these gay ass approximations of skate parks and let’s find some vacant lots and build our own!
For more info on skater built vigilante skateparks:
www.washingtonstreetskatepark.org
www.sanpedroskateparkassociation.org
www.fdrskatepark.org