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RECREATION
Can Boston build a skatepark that doesn’t suck?
BY CAMILLE DODERO

The plaint of Boston-area skaters has been the same for years, probably since local cops first started shooing board riders off public property and confiscating their maple slabs. "You have people in the city telling skaters you can’t skate there, you can’t here," says Vanik Hacobian, a 25-year-old professional skateboarder living in Mission Hill. "Well, where can we skate?" The City of Boston has never properly fielded that question, despite lobbing hundreds of thousands of dollars at a pair of subpar skateparks in East Boston and Hyde Park. "They’re just shitty town-funded projects that do the bare minimum to please the kids and make themselves look good," says Hacobian, who’s garnered sponsorships from skateboard manufacturers like Santa Cruz and Krux. Those parks — prefabricated concrete obstacles slapped down on blacktop — supposedly justify kicking kids out of spots like Copley Square, City Hall Plaza, and Faneuil Hall, but local skaters see the poorly planned grounds as ham-fisted gestures intended to placate their not-so-unreasonable requests. "If we’re going to take the city seriously or the police seriously," points out Hacobian, "they have to give us something worthwhile to skate [on]."

Renata von Tscharner, president of the Charles River Conservancy (CRC), wants to give skaters a good place to attempt their ollies, grind their trucks, and kickflip their boards. With Hacobian providing input from the skating community (von Tscharner knows Hacobian’s dad), von Tscharner is spearheading an effort to build a "world-class" skatepark on 40,000 square feet of land nestled below the Zakim Bridge, an unused area called the New Basin parklands. She hopes to have the park completed by 2006. Maybe it’s a reflection of the fact that elementary-school girls across the country spent the latter half of last year squealing Avril Lavigne’s "Sk8er Boi" into hairbrushes, but the endeavor has received widespread backing, including support from Boston city councilors Michael Flaherty, Michael Ross, and Paul Scapicchio; the Tony Hawk Foundation; the Boston Foundation; and State Senator Jarrett Barrios. "It’s been on the radar for the last six months," says CRC project and administration director Kristin Mallek. "And we’re surprised at how well the idea’s already been received."

The biggest question, of course, is how the New Basin skatepark will avoid becoming another debacle. First off, the CRC hopes to raise between $500,000 and $1 million to fund the project, whereas East Boston cost around $125,000. And, in contrast with that asphalt-covered park, Hacobian says, planners intend to use smooth, seamless concrete. "You fall and pretty much slide," says Hacobian. "It’s not rough at all, it’s very nice to skate on, very smooth to skate on, maintains your speed." Although the East Boston and Hyde Park skateparks are relatively new, both are already deteriorating a problem Hacobian believes will be avoided by putting metal edges on the new park’s obstacles and delineating a separate space to accommodate BMX bikers, who are often blamed for damaging skateparks.

Above all, the current state of Boston-sanctioned skating clearly needs improvement. "I went to the grand opening at East Boston [in 1999] and I cut my hand open within five minutes," remembers Hacobian. "If I’m going to do that, what’s going to happen to a little kid?"

A panel discussion about the proposed skatepark with FOX25 sports anchor Butch Stearns, Vanik Hacobian, and Renata von Tscharner will take place on Wednesday, July 30 at 6:30 p.m., at the Boston Public Library. Call (617) 641-9131.


Issue Date: July 25 - 31, 2003
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