By City of Durham, Press Release:

Durham Parks and Recreation will hold a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the new downtown skateboard park during the Earth Day Festival this Saturday. The ceremony will be held at the Eco Lounge on the Orange Street Mall at 2 p.m. as a part of the Skate-able Art and Skateboarding Demonstration conducted by Nik Spaulding, owner of Ujamaa Boardhouse.

• The skateboard park will be located at 502 Foster Street in Durham Central Park and will open later this year.
• The park was designed by Pillar Design Studios and will cost approximately $350,000.
• The project was funded through a combination of impact fees and 2005 general obligation bonds.
• The park will be a 10,000 square foot poured-in-place concrete public skateboard park. It will consist of both a quality engaging street area and transitional area with a bowl.
• Features include a floating quarter pipe, launch boxes, step-up bank, 3-seven step stairs with handrails, a street clam, and an 8 inch trog bowl.
• Construction is scheduled to begin in May and is projected to be substantially complete in October.

The Earth Day Festival will be held at the CCB Plaza and historic Parrish Street on Saturday, April 25 from 12 noon – 5 p.m. For more information about Earth Day, visit www.DurhamEarthDay.org. For information about the groundbreaking, contact Cynthia Booth at (919) 560-4355.

About Durham Parks and Recreation

Durham Parks and Recreation provides opportunities for the Durham community to “Play More.” The department strives to help citizens discover, explore and enjoy life through creative and challenging recreational choices that contribute to their physical, emotional and social health. To learn more about Durham Parks and Recreation, visit the department’s website at http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/parks.

I took a recent road trip with a few fellow skaters to a fairly new skatepark in Upstate New York, just outside of Ithaca, NY.

The park is located in Central Lansing New York, next door to Rogue’s Harbor Restaurant and Bar, and Gimme! Coffee, just outside of Ithaca – only about seven miles north on Rt34/East Shore Drive. The skatepark is right across the street from a great deli called The Sub Shop, and just down the road from a pizza and ice cream shop, Lakebreeze Pizzeria.  However, plan ahead and bring your own food on Sunday, they are both closed.

East Shore Skate Park is a skate and bike park built to have fun and progress. It is a place for new, young up and coming skaters/riders to learn – and also a great place for advanced riders to meet up for a good session.

The building that houses the park was once a grocery store the closed in the early 90’s.  The building sat empty for years, until the current owner bought it with hopes of storing heavy equipment. Overall the park has a nice flow to it and even though it is heavily populated with BMX riders you wouldn’t really notice because of the way the park was built and layed out. The ramps are good and solid and the halfpipe is nothing less than awesome and built very very well, no kinks that I could feel. The coping was a bit smaller than what I am used to, but it was nothing a few runs couldn’t cure.

The street course is equally as fun although I like to stick to the halfpipes thease days, the younger skaters were ripping it up.

The locals are also very friendly and the owner was super friendly and happy to show us around. They are constantly having events and even have a spring break camp coming up in April. I would recomend anyone who is near the Ithaca area to check out the place as I have been to a few parks lately that have honestly been a disapointment but East Shore Skatepark is definitly not one of them.

Visit there website at www.eastshoreskatepark.com for more info!

Here is a bit of footage of the skatepark!

A space-time anomaly hits the local skatepark. Home grown special effects and two world-class skateparks.

Get to know the art, passion, design, inspiration behind the building of the world’s biggest, best and most innovative skate park in the world, in the modern face of China, Shanghai. Featuring one of the world’s pro skater, Neal Hendrix sharing his experience traveling around the world and skating on the largest vert ramp in the world. Also watch other famous pro skaters from around the world sharing their experience and discussing the influence and future of skateboarding in shanghai. Check out the full episode of High 5 Extreme Sport featuring Skate in China.