SeaSk8 Ribbon Cutting (photos)

SeaSk8_GrandO2Last Saturday marked the first time in Seattle history, when city officials including Seattle Center staff, openly welcomed sanctioned skateboarding on the Seattle Center campus.  This milestone culminates over 10 years of volunteer effort initiated by a Seattle Center staff member, James Crabtree, and has been carried to completion through several waves of Seattle skatepark advocates.  Sure, there were previous instances of a Seattle Center skatepark, but none of those were actually at the Seattle Center.

The mood was festive, and the skating was furious.  Everyone was there, except the mainstream media and Mayor Nickels, who was celebrating something arguably less important across town at the same time as the ribbon cutting ceremony.  Regardless, Councilmembers Drago (Nickels’ competition in the upcoming Mayoral election), Conlin, Clark, and Rasmussen, were all there to speak on behalf of their substantial amount of support for locating the park on the Center Campus, and for skateparks in general.

Now it’s up to Seattle skateboarders not to blow a good thing…

3 Replies to “SeaSk8 Ribbon Cutting (photos)”

  1. New park for seattle-a milestone indeed; a hard battle won in a hostile region. I don’t want to take anything from all that hard work. But as far as feature muni-parks go, we got rinky-dinked. To use a Seattle skatepark advocacy term, this “park” is better classified as a “dot.” We’ve all seen the pictures, and there’s no hiding the fact that parks such as the one in Austin, and the Charles River in Boston are leauges ahead of SeaSk8. I really hesitate to agree that our new park is over the top… well maybe just the price tag, and the techniques used in construction. Both of which ended up limiting that true over the top potential.
    However, I truly do believe this is a job well done for everyone involved, under the circumstances, but am also reminded we are philisophically far behind and should not let idle hands rest for too long.

  2. New park for Seattle-a milestone indeed; a tough battle won in a hostile region. I don’t want to take anything from all that hard work. But as far as feature muni-parks go, we got rinky-dinked. To use a Seattle skatepark advocacy term, this “park” is better classified as a “dot.” We’ve all seen the pictures, and there’s no hiding the fact that parks such as the one in Austin, and the Charles River in Boston are leauges ahead of SeaSk8. I really hesitate to agree that our new park is over the top… well maybe just the price tag, and the techniques used in construction. Both of which ended up limiting that true over the top potential.
    However, I truly do believe this is a job well done for everyone involved, under the circumstances. But I am also reminded of how we are philisophically far behind and that we should not let idle hands rest for too long. Hopefully, the ice has been cracked for a more open mindset toward Skateparks in Seattle. (Phase 2?!?!)

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