Logan Square Skate Park (finally) open!

For weeks, eager skaters have been illegally hopping construction fences to tool around the Logan Boulevard Skate Park. No longer. After four years of debate, design controversy and delays, the city's highly anticipated first covered skate park, at 2430 West Logan Boulevard under the Kennedy Expressway, had its soft opening today, according to Chicago Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner. The park features modular obstacles installed on a concrete base.

In the latest drama, the Logan Square Concerned Citizens were, uh, concerned about street artists tagging the yet-to-be-opened park with markers, stickers and even etching acid. But what people like the LSCC's Larry Ligas, who said tagging is "defacing our community," don't understand is that it's the baptism of any new skate park. Skateboarding, like graffiti, is part of street culture. By opening a public skate park, you run the risk of getting a little street in your park.

Logan Square activist Mark Heller, one of the park's earliest and most vocal proponents, tells me he's meeting with the Illinois Department of Transportation (whose land the park sits on), the Chicago Park District and the Chicago Public Art Group about how to spruce up the drab concrete space so street artists won't be tempted by the highly visible blank canvases.

But, Heller writes in an e-mail, "the biggest 'potential concern' isn't tagging; it's figuring out coexistence of two distinct user groups—skaters for whom this park was primarily designed, and BMX bikers. Let Chicago's kids skate. Let them skate late. Give them a chance to use and be responsible for their innovative park."