A skater friend introduced me to a "skate park" a few days ago. basically a small triangle of tiled land, surrounded by a foot high step out of the triangle. In the evenings after the sun goes down, skateboarders and BMX bikers meet up here to practice their tricks.
This is not a hidden area either, it's slap dab in the middle of an area that is hang out spot for teenagers, as well as the movie theatre mecca of the city. All of which means there are tons of people walking by, and those (like I did) who stop and sit down to see these guys do things I never could.
While some of these guys were very good, I was most impressed with a younger kid who was there with his mom. I can't help but admire a kid who not only was just starting out and learning, but willing to do it in front of hundreds of people, while his mom tagged along no less. Get'em little kid! Later on one lady skater joined up, who was a foreigner, and she seemed pretty well known.
The picture is quite blurry, which is too bad cause i thought i was having a terrific shot of one guy grinding on the ledge. oh well. Actually this seems to be the one picture where it isn't just full of skaters and bikers in the middle. All those moving bodies just made those pictures look a mess. At the time of this picture most of them were taking a rest on the sides. It's funny that when it was just a few people, the skaters and bikers were all sitting together, but as more and more came, they kind of separated with the bikers relaxing and chatting on the left edge and the skaters on the right.
The most important and interesting thing of all this though, is the building in the back left. It's a hospital. Yes all this takes place in the front grounds of a hospital (i believe it's even a public hospital at that). I was first shocked that the government/police would allow skaters to congregate like this and tear up this part of the city, But when you think about it a bit more, it makes sense. Have a hospital, have an area for people to skateboard and bike, they get injured, you rake in the money treating them. And with a national health care system everybody wins! Oh wait, except for the tax payers (like me).....that's it, close this place down!
