Skate date

In the early hours of Wild in the Streets—a skateboarding event sponsored by the West Coast skateboard shoe company Emerica on June 21—scores of people with skateboards huddled in the grass or did tricks along paths near Buckingham Fountain.

But when the Emerica team arrived at around 2pm, a frantic autographing session exploded. Andrew Reynolds, an internationally renowned pro, was flanked by trails of kids clutching skateboards and T-shirts. “Dude, I’ll buy your hat,” one bellowed. Then another pro, Heath Kirchart, and a few others from the Emerica squad rumbled into the park on Harleys, setting the tone for a day designed to get as many skateboarders as possible together to show their numbers as they tear through the city. Hundreds of skaters then rode the lakefront bike path to Wilson Skate Park at Wilson Avenue and Lake Shore Drive for a skate demo and open skate.

The International Association of Skateboard Companies proclaimed June 21 worldwide Go Skateboarding Day in 2004. This year, Emerica named Chicago “Skate City USA” to bring attention to the new Chicago Skateboarding Organization and recognize the city’s plans to build two more outdoor skate parks: one in Grant Park and one under an I-90/94 overpass in Logan Square, bringing the total to four. Burnham Skate Park at 31st Street and LSD was the city’s first outdoor concrete park, and Wilson (the most popular, because the city involved skaters in the design and building process) came second.

Skaters hope to see more permanent venues with concrete components—something that’s currently not in plans for the new parks.

For the Grant Park project, three tennis courts will be removed to create space for a plaza, which is estimated to cost at least $100,000. The skate plaza (which, by definition, is a place where skaters can skate street terrain legally) will essentially be a slab of concrete with five recycled plastic obstacles—benches mainly, designed by Dan Peterman, a local artist who made similar pieces for the MCA that were popular with skaters. The plaza will be “temporary” with the possibility of becoming a fixture if “skaters and nonskateboarders like it,” said Robert O’Neill, president of the Grant Park Conservancy. “I’d like to see it evolve.”

As for the planned design, Ken Keistler, manager at Uprise Skate Shop, says, “I skate [the benches] all the time, they’re great. But the idea is to get on the move to a big concrete plaza.”

John Cronin, 34, points to the success of Wilson, for which he was a consultant. “There’s only one way to make a skate park and that’s fucking concrete. Build something permanent if you mean it. Make it legitimate and they will come.”

But O’Neill says the temporary layout is the only way the park will get built (construction could start after the Taste of Chicago). “A permanent park will be much more expensive, and if it didn’t work out, that would be very expensive.”

The Logan Square park will also be temporary, with parts made out of Skatelite (a wood-based material). Cronin predicts it will end up like the one at Pratt and Western. “The ramps were good for two years, and then they died, you can’t skate them,” Cronin says. “Why don’t they save their money and do it right? We’re skaters. We’re patient.