Skate park helps revitalize waterfront

By Nick Malahosky and Jason Saul
Bengal News West Reporters
           It’s a crisp day at Buffalo’s waterfront. There’s a beautiful sunset over the water to your right, and a field of rusting industrial equipment from the Buffalo Waterworks to your left.
          This is the image that LaSalle Park offered visitors as recently as three years ago. Since then, a bustling skate park and a growing micro-parks system have begun to drive LaSalle’s revitalization. Phase one of the skate park was completed three years ago; it has since been extremely overcrowded.
          This is one of the problems that was addressed at the phase

Jason McCarthy of Buffalo Micro Parks checks proposals

two planning session on Sept. 24 at the Belle Center on Maryland Street. Skateboarder slang words such as “crooks,"  "backtail," "goofy" and "hubba”  flew around the room as designers, local skaters, and representatives of the city hashed out ideas and suggestions. The current designs for phase two will effectively double the size of the park and include a “street section,” to help reduce skater traffic.
           Since the park’s construction, Nike has filmed a commercial at the park and more than one team of professional skateboarders have visited. Phase one  of the park has been so successful that construction for phase two is slated to begin in spring of 2016.
          “We work on a lot of skate park design projects,” Bill Gurney, lead designer of the park, said. “And they end up showing multiple phases -- phase one, phase two, phase three -- and for a lot of those projects phase II just sits on paper forever. They rarely happen...so I’m very pleasantly surprised that Buffalo is, in a three year time frame, doubling the size of their park.”
           Perhaps this is because LaSalle has not been plagued by some of the issues that trouble other skate parks and public places, such as graffiti and vandalism. This surprised many at the planning meeting, from the designer to local skaters.
           “I haven’t heard of any negative comments in the three years since phase I was complete,” Gurney said. “I know it’s really busy and is overcrowded which is a big reason for why we’re doing phase II so I was really surprised by the fact that I didn’t see any graffiti. I can’t explain it, honestly I find it amazing.”
          Drew Ferraro, a local skateboarder, offered his take on why the park has done so well since its inception.
           “I think it’s because we feel a sense of ownership, you know,” he said. “Not a lot of people are lucky enough to get a park this cool, and I think people want to show Buffalo that we can handle this. I know if me or any of these guys here saw someone pull up with a spray can, we’d make sure they got out of here. We love this place, we want to keep it nice.”
           Jason McCarthy, the founder and chair of Buffalo Micro Parks has been instrumental in pushing for the area’s rebirth. He was a driving force behind getting several “micro-parks” and phase one of the LaSalle skate park built.



           But why does LaSalle  need a skate park?
            “Skateboarding is the most actively participated sport in America, more kids skate than play any one team sport,” JP Gillespie, owner of Sunday skate shop, said. “Once the city realized ‘Wow, Dunkirk has a skate park? Okay, wait.’ When the town of Dunkirk has a skate park and the city of Buffalo does not, there’s something wrong. To be a city you need to have one of those to draw the youth and keep people here and keep kids doing something constructive.”