Indianapolis skateboarders are bout to get the shaft. Marian College wants to buy manage and use the Major Taylor athletic complex, land that contains a skatepark that is in the middle of a velodrome. Originally they had intended to demolish the skatepark, but thankfully, the city nixed that idea as a condition of the sale. The velodrome is what the college really wants for their bicycle racing team… Hold on, bicycle racing in Indiana… it’s Breaking Away! Sorry. Next they came up with a scheme to convince the city to let them demo the park after all. It involved reducing the hours the park was open and charging admission, with none of the money going towards park upgrades. I can just hear it now… “Oh, nobody is using the skatepark and it’s expensive to operate. We need to tear it down…”
There’s a petition up to keep the skatepark free and open 24-7, just as it always has been. Physically, the park is not otherwise noteworthy except for the fact that it’s the only skatepark the city of 810,000 people has. The Major Taylor skatepark has a Myspace page put up by an ex-employee of the park, but so far no official spot to go for updates and mobilization. Ditch MySpace and set up a Blogger site or something. Good luck skaters. NOTE: After signing the petition, a page loads requesting a donation. The donation is not required, but if you do donate, please be aware that the money goes to the petition service and not the Major Taylor Skatepark fund.
– Thanks to Carl from Toast and others for the tip.
12 comments
Jason
Don’t be a bunch of sissies, tell them flat out that you will F them up if they so much as touch one piece of the skatepark. Especially if you are under 18, they can’t lock you up. It’s YOUR place, don’t let a bunch of old suited smucks destroy YOUR skatepark.
Will Jones
word to Jay
Jay frmDC
It is funny most of the people that I ride bikes with also skate, but when colleges want bike racing teams to race, it sounds like the new fad is biking and the school is jumping on board. If they could organize a skate team and make money they would do that. Skaters and Cyclist need to unite, both are so DIY and out of the norms of the regular users of public ways, that they have the same goals: equal use and access.
Harley
Any free skate park is better than none.
//H
brad
right-o ZED! The spine, etc. must be post-2001?
Kilwag
Eric – Duly noted. Thanks.
Eric Bose(former indyparks employee)
Just so you guys know,to be factual,the college can’t legally purchase the land.I wrote the intro bit on the petition.They have a “management/partnership” scheme in the works,whatever the hell that means.
The city has neglected that whole property for years and they just don’t want to deal with it.So now the college will be running the property and they don’t want to deal with the skatpark either.I figure it will blow chunks any way you look at it.
No more contests,or DIY events(except maybe by non-skating promotors that charge people to even watch).No more skate clinics for the lil’tykes.They haven’t stated any plan whatsoever.It will pretty much suck the life out of the scene there for sure.
Our only hope is to find some way to use this as an opportunity to challenge the city to get it’s head out of it’s ass,and talk with the skaters about getting a long term plan in place because skateboarding isn’t going anywhere any time soon.That’s pretty much like pulling teeth with the Parks Dept. though.
We have a couple of great concrete parks in Indiana(Kokomo Pipeline/Upper Cascades in Bloomington…both at least an hour from Indy),but Indianapolis is totally in the dark ages,and lacking when it comes to skateboarding.
Zed-word
Not so fast Brad, Midland, Mi skatepark is of a very similar design. It is the park I grew up skating so maybe I am a little biased but I love that park. Aside from a vert wall and a bowl, it has everything, and the mini-ramp and spine section is a blast.
Good luck Indianapolis skateboarders, and thanks for keeping us informed Kilwag.
brad
oh my god, i used to live there and that park is the WORST.
curtis
another place that could use some Maloof money
colin
shit i totally donated
Concretin Nik
City officials are dumb. Good luck indeed.