s p a c i n g : : : whose space is public space?

Outer Space
Philly's love of skaters

by Trevor Ydreos

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Built in the 1950s, John F. Kennedy Plaza is a well-designed park in the heart of Philadelphia, just steps from City Hall. The park is familiarly known as Love Park, after Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” pop-sculpture, which is perched prominently in its centre.

Love Park fell into decline during the late ‘80s. The park became a haven for drug dealers and their customers. Most city dwellers and everyday people feared to visit it. It was a place of neglect; even the police and politicians were complacent about its decay, but this didn’t keep a few individuals from working towards something positive.

The open, smooth, and otherwise neglected space caught the eye of skateboarders, who took advantage of the poor situation. The park was soon filled with people again, skating its ramps and curves, and the sight of the skateboarders changed the public’s perception of the place. The skaters had replaced the dealers, and locals were no longer afraid to enter the park.

The Philadelphia skateboard scene gained more momentum in the ’90s. Love Park became a world-renowned “skate spot” with people travelling the world to visit the skateboard mecca. Several Philadelphia locals entered the pro ranks and began to earn a living skateboarding, all because they had paid their dues at their favourite spot. In 2000, Tony Hawk went so far as to include Philadelphia and Love Park as one of the levels in his video game, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. It didn’t take long for EXPN to try and seize upon the popularity of skateboarding in Philadelphia: it chose Philadelphia as the home of the 2001 and 2002 X-Games.

Philadelphia and Mayor John Street had a good understanding of the potential to profit from something as large as the X-Games. The cash-strapped city went into full gear to promote the event. Mayor Street even posed for an ad for the X-Games in Love Park with local pro skater Kerry Getz. EXPN began their two week event, and an “extreme” IMAX movie was shot around the city and at the contests. Elizabeth Bennett noted in the Philadelphia Business Journal that the games would bring Philadelphia nearly $50 million. The park was not only a centre of skateboarding culture, but was helping revitalize the public culture of the city. Love Park had found its way onto the world map, but even with this kind of success, Philadelphia city officials still didn’t understand the park’s value.

A few months after the first X-Games, Mayor Street and city council decided to render Love Park “unskateable.” The city fenced off the park, then spent $800,000 installing pink wooden planters, patches of grass and benches to obstruct ledges and other areas of the park used by the skaters. It took less than a year for them to forget everything they had gained from a few youths on skateboards. While the X-Games did return to the city for a second year, a shadow was cast over the place.

Love Park may have been consigned to dormancy, but it won’t go down without a fight. Edmund Bacon, whose undergraduate thesis was the basis of the park’s design, has dedicated some of his time, money, and effort to save Love Park. At 93 years old, he has gone so far as to learn how to rides a skateboard and ride through the park in protest. Scott Kip and the Skateboard Advocacy Network are working to bring skateboarding back. They are trying to partner with the skateboard industry, City Hall, and the citizens of Philadelphia. Proposals have been forwarded by SAN to limit skateboarding to certain hours, as well as provisions to ensure that the park is maintained both for skaters and other users. “We hope to get Love reopened and set a precedent for how a city should address skateboarding. Anywhere there is urban space someone is skating it. We hope to prove to cities that it is better for everyone to understand how skateboarding works and embrace it rather than trying to destroy it,” says Kip.