Englewood Florida: Part 1

I checked out the Team Pain park in Engelwood Florida over the weekend. It’s a lot smaller than it seemed from the construction shots we posted. I’m staying in Sarasota, which has a much larger park, but I actually prefer Englewood. Sarasota is separated into two main areas, bowl and street. The whole of the Englewood park probably fits inside the bowl footprint of Sarasota. Part one of the coverage is just some overviews of the park. Part two (coming tomorrow) will be pictures of the locals.

The Englewood, Florida skatepark is on the outskirts of town with all the sports fields, in the Oyster Creek recreational complex. It costs three bucks and some change to skate, which is pretty reasonable, compared to some places.

Englewood’s park is called the J.M. Berlin park, after the woman who donated the Lion’s share of the money for the skatepark in honor of her husband. They’ve go their own fingerboards too. A woman had stickers printed in the shape of Tech Decks. The local kids take the trucks off the fingerboards, apply the stickers, then reassemble them. They give them away by the handful.

Click to enlarge the pics.

On your right (above) is the big bowl. It’s got a band of really small pieces of tile. Instead of the a low rumble we’ve come to expect from the tile in the Northwest, you hear a higher pitched “zip” sound when you hit the tiles. There’s a little bit of a hum in the middle, with the biggest part of the waterfall into the deep end. I haven’t skated a ton of Florida parks, but waterfalls seem to be the exception to the rule. I think the high water table necessitates extensions in most cases, so this bowl is a treat around these parts. It’s a different style of bowl than what we tend to see in the Northwest, but it’s pretty straight forward and I really liked it. The coping is sticky as all get out and seemed porous too. They could really use some Tedder Stone down here. The bowl area on the far left is only a couple of feet deep except for the far end.

Here’s the mid size bowl. Metal coping.

Peering over the top of the bowls at the street area in the distance.

This is the low end of the street area.

Reverse angle.

The faux brick banks. These things looked real to me actually. The grout lines were rough and not colored. Still, it seems too perfect and uniform to be actual bricks. Whatever it is, they are fun.

On the approach to the Jersey barrier type obstacle. You’ll see a kid ollie clear over it as well as boardslide it.

Euro gap and a ledge.

Ledge and stairs with railing.

Back to the bowls. The fish pond.

A big old man with a little old man in tow.

Englewood Part 2 – The action shots.