New Potrero Del Sol Skatepark Opens July 4th

San Francisco's second public skateboard facility is set to open July 4th at Potrero Del Sol Park, located at 25th and Utah streets in the southeast outskirts of the City's historic Mission District. The skatepark will be a much-needed relief to local skaters tired of dodging traffic, thugs and broken glass at the usual street spots, while local food, gas and convenience item retailers can expect at least modest revenue spurts, especially in summertime and on weekends.

 

Although the new skatepark will surely benefit residents and youth of San Francisco by providing a place to roll, local skateboarders, most of whom are overwhelmingly supportive of and thankful for the new park, have also expressed a range of mixed reactions over issues including design, beaurocracy, locale and the potential impact on street skating.

 

San Francisco has been an international epicenter of skateboard culture and industry for two decades now. Over the years and into today, San Francisco has been home to literally dozens of skateboard manufacturers and is arguably the skateboard-publishing capital of the world. The City got its original attention in the early 1990s via the combination of the original Union Square, the Embarcadero's Justin Herman Plaza and a pack of gifted local kids including Henry Sanchez, Jovontae Turner, Mike Carroll, Drake Jones and James Kelch. Plan B's 1992 Questionable video along with subsequent video releases from World Industries catapulted San Francisco and the kids at Justin Herman Plaza, known as 'Embarcadero' or simply 'EMB' to skaters, into the international skateboarding spotlight.

 

And why not? Aside from the world-famous plaza, San Francisco itself is a veritable treasure trove of skateable architecture and landscape including unique residential areas and a robust Financial District made all the more amenable to skateboarding with stairs, gaps, ledges and lots of really good hills. In reference to footage of City native Tommy Guerrero creatively utilizing the nooks and crannies of Sunset neighborhoods and downtown thoroughfares in Powell-Peralta's 1985 smash hit Future Primitive, SFGate.com's Culture Blog declared the City "A natural skatepark" and indeed that's a comparison many skateboarders embrace.

 

As such, conflicts with authority and commercial interests come with the territory. Skateparks are often proposed as the solution to such conflicts, and this itself is a notion skateboarders are sure to have mixed opinions about as well. While most if not all skateboarders support the construction of public skateparks, many feel that over-reliance upon them can encourage the criminalization of street skating, which is technically never illegal unless done amidst public complaint or clearly in the presence of legislation demanding otherwise. Whether good, bad or indifferent, a skatepark gives authorities a place to restrict skateboarding to, but unfortunately natural city architecture and landscape is often far more appealing to skateboarders than the limited designs and shoddy construction of many California skateparks.

 

Many skaters feel such restriction is completely antithetical to the spirit of skateboarding. "It's kind of offensive to be caged up like that," says Travis Jensen, a 29-year-old author, skateboarder and City resident who pens the City Sports column for the Chronicle. Jensen notes that although the new skatepark is great and gives skateboarders a relatively safe, family friendly and hassle-free place to skate, it will also provide ample ground for law enforcement to crackdown on street skating, an observation already confirmed by local skateboarders.

 

"The cops are already telling us to go there and the park's not even open," said Zak Gonzalez, 24-year-old Mission resident, lifelong skateboarder and warehouse chief for the Mission-based Highgrade Distribution, manufacturers of skateboards, accessories and a growing line of ecologically conscious apparel. Gonzalez added that the skatepark design was good in his opinion, saying, "The park is super sick, it's got lots of good transitions with lots of skaters in the area...the only other downside is that the other park projects have to be completed before we can skate."

 

The "other park projects" referred to include an ADA curb ramp and parking stall at San Bruno Avenue, replacement of the bathroom doors, and drainage improvements at the playing field at the northwest corner of the park. While some may argue special pleading, skaters resent having to toil two full months under the imperfections of the streets when the park is perfectly skateable now.

 

Which brings us full circle. "That's what I like about street skating," added Jensen. "I just like being out and being a part of the chaos in the streets. It just feels good to be out like that, especially in San Francisco. Parks are fun for practice, but even if there's 500 parks I'm still going to street skate." This author personally skated EMB in the early nineties and would testify that the natural architecture of the original Justin Herman Plaza was far more conducive to the evolution of skateboarding than either of the existing San Francisco skateparks.

 

Although situated in the highest concentration of children under 18 in the City with over 19,000 kids living within a mile of the park, the location is arguably not centrally located to the skateboarding community. Skateboarding residents in other neighborhoods wish the park was closer to them, or at least a little more centrally located. For example, many Westside skateboarders wish Golden Gate Park had something too, an issue currently being discussed. "There's no reason Golden Gate Park shouldn't have had a skatepark years ago," says Rodney VanB of the Richmond District's 15-years-strong Purple Skunk skateboard shop. "It's one of the most famous parks in the world, and it would keep young kids living in the Avenues from having to take public transportation somewhere unfamiliar and dangerous," he added.

 

Other City residents have absolutely nothing to say whatsoever about the skatepark, or at least nothing bad. Andy Caulfield, 28-year-old team manager and general frontman for the internationally successful FTC skateshop on Haight proper, said, "I don't think there's anything bad about it at all. It's all good. It's a great start for SF. Hopefully there will be more parks to come." City residents might recall that FTC has actively supported the construction of a public skatepark for most of their 20+ years of service to San Francisco skateboarding.

 

As for future accommodation of skateboarding in San Francisco, plans are currently underway to incorporate street skating plazas in Golden Gate Park using prop 40 funds, and also at the Duboce Street underpass, with skateboarders and interested citizens invited to get further involved with the San Francisco Skateboarding Association at www.sfskateboarding.org

 

It was a wise individual who once noted you can't please all of the people all of the time, and regardless of what you think about the new skatepark it opens July 4th and is accessible by 33 Muni exit 25th Street or 101 freeway exit Potrero or Ceaser Chavez westbound. Admission is free.