City Hall was packed with skateboarders on Wednesday night when two local business owners presented plans for a DIY skate park to the city council.
Chris “Puddin” Aylward, the co-owner of Wood Shop Skateboards, and Lou Cuccaro, owner of Metal Skateboards, addressed the council on behalf of the skateboarding community.
Aylward and Cuccaro hope to lead the construction of a DIY [do-it-yourself] skate park on the West Side. The DIY park will be less costly than a typical park, and will likely inspire younger skaters to be more respectful of the facilities because they were hand-built, Aylward said.
“We’ll take care of it ourselves and fund it,” Aylward said. “We just need the land to do it.”
Some local skaters built a DIY skate park near the Casino on Madison Marquette property shortly after Hurricane Sandy, but Madison Marquette’s workers dismantled the park last month because the area was deemed unsafe and the property was private.
After that park was torn down, Aylward decided to ask the city for a place to build a park, he said.
A DIY park fosters a community effort between skaters, their friends, musicians, artists and more, Cuccaro said. The community will hold fundraisers, solicit donations from businesses and organize the park.
“It’s fairly easy and it’s a lot less time-consuming” than buying skate park equipment from a company, Cuccaro said. “This is a better way. Everyone in this room will be involved.”
Work on the park will start “as soon as possible,” Cuccaro said. Cuccaro designed a skateboard deck that he’ll sell as a fundraiser for the park, he said, and an online fundraiser on a website like Kickstarter will also take place.
Aylward suggested the city place the park on the West Side. There are empty tennis courts without nets near Asbury Park Middle School, he said, as well as a few other empty spots. A smooth surface is required for the park.
The park will likely “draw kids from all over the place,” Mayor Ed Johnson said.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Deputy Mayor John M. Loffredo said. “We had been talking about this, so it was great when [city manager Terence Reidy] said you’d contacted him.”
Loffredo and Councilman Kevin Sanders are members of the recreation committee, and they have driven around the city looking for suitable locations for a skate park as well, Sanders said. A West Side location would be ideal because there are more potential locations there, Sanders said.
“I think this will help blur the line between West Side and East Side,” Aylward said.
The council invited Aylward and Cuccaro to attend the recreation committee meeting later this month so that they can discuss locations for the park.
“It doesn’t take a half-million dollars to put this together, ” Reidy said. “It’s something that can get started with very little money as long as the site is sanctioned.”
Councilwoman Susan Henderson said she had been struck by the dedication of some members of the skateboarding community at a forum on violence at the Boys and Girls Club.
“They said, ‘If you want the youth to do something else, you have to build a park,'” Henderson said. “The fact that you want to put this on the West Side where we want to see more activities — this council has put a lot of time and effort into what you’re starting to see happen on Springwood Avenue and I think this is one of the missing pieces.”
During the public comment section of the regular council meeting about an hour later, Frank Syfax, president of the West Side’s Citizens United, said his group is currently surveying children on the West Side to find out what types of recreation activities they’d like to see.
“Some want skate parks, some want other things,” he said. “We wanted to see if you guys would just hold on until we get all the surveys together.”
The skate park will not be the only new recreation site on the West Side, Johnson said.
“I don’t want to see this as a situation of one program or another,” he said. “I think we need to have a multitude of programs and activities for children to participate in and get to learn some new sports and activities.”
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[Above photo by Chris Spiegel.]
