Jersey City is Getting a Proper Concrete Skatepark

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A few days late on this, whatever.

And look, Tony, dude, I’m sorry I linked that soundbyte of Tas Pappas telling you to fuck off on Monday.

As per an announcement several days ago, Jersey City was awarded a $25K grant from the Tony Hawk Foundation, which facilitates the construction of a public skatepark in a zone with “at-risk youth.” The park will be a part of the Berry Lane Park development off Communipaw Avenue. Berry Lane is less than a ten-minute skate away from the current site of the Jersey City junk spot, and near the Garfield Avenue Light Rail station. Considering most sections of the neighborhood currently look like this, it’s quite an upgrade. Can’t tell where inside the park the skatepark is though.

We’ll leave the pontificating re: skateparks “homogenizing style” or whatever to the Slap boards and interviews about “the state of skateboarding.” We’ve eased up on skatepark-averse news coverage these past five years. Jersey City isn’t a prime example of forward-thinking recreational space, so prior to this week, this looked like it would’ve been in endless limbo. Skaters in Jersey City have subsided on the Rink and their D.I.Y. spot for the past half-decade, without much else to skate hassle-free. This is the first concrete park in a major city in New Jersey (edit: disregard that, Elizabeth had a concrete park for a few years); it’s absurd it has taken this long.

This is a win-win for everyone. The park is slated to open by the end of 2015. Much respect to all the people who lobbied for the park and made it happen :)

P.S. Not to downplay the contribution by people at the Hawk Foundation whatsoever, but how insane is it that a baseball foundation gives them $173.5k for lights and a scoreboard?

Lights and a scoreboard. $173.5K. Who, like, even plays baseball anymore?

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7 Comments

  1. looks pretty cool….looks very similar to the one in elizabeth off route 1&9 by the airport. similar in design and locale.

  2. That’s crazy about that only being the 2nd cement skatepark in all of New Jersey. They really got robbed by the lames that makes those prefab parks.

  3. It’s not the 2nd cement park in Jersey, just the 2nd cement one in a major city, i.e. Elizabeth is a major city, Sayerville (cement park) is not.


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