The Deerfield Hunter

After spending most of the session at Northbrook, Neil asked if I wanted to check out Chicagoland’s oldest concrete skatepark located near by in Deerfield, Illinois. He said it was janky, but they used to call it home before Northbrook existed. I’ve never been one to pass up some jank and/or history for a quick photo or two.

Jewett Park Sakteprk – Deerfield Illinois.

So this skatepark is a crapfest, but for some reason I can forgive the park district for building a crappy skatepark in 1996.

Here’s the view from the parking lot. The Police station is at your back, and they have your back too. Neil dislocated (or separated?) his shoulder there once and said the cops were more than helpful as far as getting his gear out of there and helping him get medical attention.

From their web site:

The Deerfield Park District has built one of the first public poured concrete skate board and in-line skate facilities in the state. The 11,000 square foot facility is located in Jewett Park, near the corner of Deerfield and Waukegan Roads. It is geared to the more experienced athlete. Hours at this unsupervised facility are dawn to dusk. There is no charge to use the facility. Safety equipment is encouraged. Helmets are required for all skaters under 16 years of age.

Geared to the more experienced athlete? Well maybe by default since the transition is pretty steep for a bowl that size. Same thing goes for pyramid-step combo. However, the rest of the park is fine for less experienced. It flows down hill and and there is a kind of very lazy and shallow impression with an adjacent set of bumps between the top and bottom part. It’s fun to roll over but not deep enough to allow you to work it or build momentum. There’s plenty of flat at the bottom and the rail is really low.

That’s Neil’s friend Mark and his twin brother Mark in the panorama below.

Check out a closeup of that coping. Chunks of cement were flying off with almost every pass at the coping. sadly, not because I’m so gnarly, but because the park is not being maintained. I can forgive them for building a crappy skatepark in 1996, but they need to take care of this type of thing.

Here’s a nice long downhill s-curve curb.

Panorama view from the opposite end.

This one is only here to show you what’s on the opposite side of the hubba in the panorama above.

The angle on this half pyramid/stair setup is a little steep.

Deerfield’s skatepark is not up to snuff. It definitely has the aura of something built in the 90’s by someone who didn’t quite get it. It’s one of those crappy spots you were glad to have when it was the only thing around, but now it’s mostly just a curiosity. Of course you can still have a lot of fun here. I certainly did, and I might be tempted to make it a semi-regular stop on the way to or from Northbrook if I lived in the area. It’s interesting to consider that Lincoln City (Phase I) was just two years away when this park was built. I think I’d still rather skate here than here. I think I’m willing to cut this park some slack because at least it seemed like the city cared at some point when skateboarding wasn’t even very popular compared to the level it has reached today. Compare that to some prefab on a lonely slab somewhere that seems to be just an excuse that says “Now they can’t complain that there’s no place to skate.”

This is the overhead view courtesy of Google Maps.