Seattle Center skate plaza open (?)
Or at least I have to assume it’s open, although judging by the photos aI got, it’s either wildly unpopular or a very well kept secret. Marek Litinsky is our man on the scene:
Hey, so I went up to Orcas this weekend. Turned out I went with bunch of kooks who saw the park and wanted to leave. I thought I was gonna pull my hair out. So, no shots from the island but at least I got couple photos from that new park in Seattle and bunch of shots from marginal way where we spent the night and skated a bit sunday morning. There you go. dont go on trips with little kids. EVER!!! it doesnt matter if they are 18 or 38. Theres even a photo of ever elusive dick cancer for those readers who would wanna see 38 year old skatepark collector.
I’m going to hold off the Marginal Way photos for another day. It’s too much for one post. I had planned on asking Bobcat to do the photo recon, but I thought better of it since I didn’t want him to suffer from a ruptured brain aneurysm if he ever set foot on the unhallowed ground. I know it’s not the same sort of terrain they tore down at the old Sea Sk8, but it looks fun to me. Maybe I’m blinded by all prettiness. Although you gotta love to hate a design that puts all the biggest tranny on the same side of the park, with nothing facing it to build up speed. That’s my armchair critique. I also don’t see the big glass pyramid that was in the original design.
It’s a very, uhm, attractive skate park. Was it 5am when you were there, Marek? Considering the location, it’s hard to believe no one’s skating, whatever time it was. Wow.
I was at the grand opening. Didn’t skate (too crowded), but it looks pretty fun and people had no problem getting to the big tranny with enough speed.
$3 million dollar waste of money. Yeah three million – enough to build 12 motherfucking newbergs. the finish is great, being grindline how the park design can suck wet farts out of dead frogs. that is no thanks to the designer not listening to input and deciding on this overprice art plaza. I like street, I like ramps, I like skateboarding – however this is just flat out lame.
This is our ‘fifth’ iteration of Seaskate (and the worst) for those keeping track, FYI.
That Marek dude shoulda taken photos of the kooks who made him leave Orcas, so as to out them. WTF kind of skateboarder doesn’t want to skate Orcas?!?
Looks pretty small for $3 million.
Well you could make enough more of those big walls to go around 180
and scowl!
Skateboarding for artsake never works. Functional design and flow is the backbone of fun for all generations and diverse styles of skating.
Marek, I also agree with Pacific Hessian. And for what it’s worth, those kooks can’t leave the island so quickly if you have the car keys.
looks really nice and fun, and fits in with the seattle artsy fartsy scene! dig it!
Personally, I think I might have just as much fun at that park as Orcas but $3 mill? You have to be kidding about the price tag???
I’m waiting for the ghetto graffiti to hit that park.
It wont look so pretty then. 3 million? What a waste! I can’t wait to go skate that piece of crap.
Yeah, the price tag is ridiculous.
I wonder how much of that 3 million went to the builders? Those guys deserve to get paid as much as any other contractor on a public project like that. Something tells me there not and are still eating corn dogs at 7-11.
It’s alright.I’ll take Marginal though
Looks flat out awkward, empty, and small.
The median home price in Seattle is $400,000. A skatepark in downtown any major city is going to cost a shitload.
http://www.housingtracker.net/asking-prices/seattle-washington
$350,000. that skatepark is roughly the size of 2 homes so being devils advocate that’s $700k (even though it was written there would be a skatepark space paid and set up for us upon the destruction of the fourth seaskate but that’s another story).
So theres $2.3 million left to discuss.
Respect to Bobcat but his numbers are incorrect.
The skatepark itself was around $800K which is still really expensive. There was a building demolished, a bunch of subterranean stuff for Key Arena that had to be moved and kept open, as well as the entire HVAC for the arena that had to be modified.
all that other shit brought the tag up to near $3M which is also insane.
skaters are so spoiled these days
fuck everyone, and fuck everything
its open, randy. one of the signs of the kook is that he gets up at six am and thats how i ended up in that park just about 6:15 am. fuck me. only other person who was there at that time was some girl in her thirties. i usually try to stay away from those morning sessions where only people who are ashamed to skate with other people (kids and old kooks) peep out their heads but there was no escaping it at that time.
and i wont “out” anybody. i just made a little note not to ever get in the car with them for more then five minutes:)
talking about that price…
usually guys who work on these projects get a PW so i wouldnt feel sorry for them.
what i would wanna know is why the fuck is that whole place surrounded with most likely super expansive custom glass panels and why is it all stained conrete? that shit is pretty expansive on such a large scale and i personally couldnt care less if it is grey or beige.
what the fuck do you know about respect, Matt?
I would kill for that in my neck of the woods. Some old skaters are just old and cranky and want to bitch about every park that doesn’t have a bowl. Variety is the spice of life.
Oh.. Drunk Andy… you obviously know nothing of the back story behind this park… Nice to blame it on old skaters. Go look up ignorance in the dictionary.
Marek,
I was told the glass was there because of some law in Seattle that every new structure has to have a certain percentage of “art” included it and that’s why a lot of newer structures up there just have some random metal sculpture off to the side. I think it’s pretty rad that they found a way to actually include it in the park itself. And I am curious as to how it is gonna work out… Maybe I’ll go see sometime.
I’d love to skate that. Looks pretty. Hope the city doesn’t spaz out and over react when the first giant penis is spray painted on it. And it’s only a matter of time…
graffitis? in my overpriced art plaza? word from the skaters last night who came into my skaterock dj night claim its ABD.
Not many places as fun as orcas!!!!!
Would be nice to have an Orcas in Seattle.
Yep that 11,000 sf of actual skatepark cost more than newberg.
The park is fun though, & does have some flow, but it could be better, of course, on the maintaining speed factor/features.
It does have some unique original elements, that make it better than just cookie cutter street elements or standard flow bowl designs.
Ever wonder why a good looking park is not really a lot of fun? Cookie Cutter factor + not enough flow & enviornment is always important if not the most. etc..
Marek, in the fourth picture from the top, it looks like you need to lower your center of gravity, as you appear to be suffering from a bad case of pillar head.
yeah, artsy is the word. this park sucks, and it’s not just the old tranny skaters that are hatin. the only people claimin this place are the skids with sea skate neck tats that are giving each other wedgies in the corner….gang initiation? perhaps. a very odd couple, though, the quasi-homeless youth of downtown seattle and the most art fag useless skatepark ever built. whatever.
The old seask8 is rolling over in its grave. Looks like an abortion of what a skate park should be.Except the only thing is, it’s right down the street from my house. I’ll probably have to hit a few times.
I did like the first Sea Sk8 with the gigantic wooden pyramid! & the Steel channel rool in ah the mid 90’s… The 2nd version was a moved location & scaled down in size drastically. The 3rd version kept basically the same scaled down sf as the 2nd. I must say that version 3 Sea Sk8 I thought the concrete bowl sucked & the snake into it was not that great, although other parts of the park were good & fun.
Hopefully reguardless this VERSION 4(to my knowledge) does open doors for Seattle to get on a master plan idea like Portland & build a great variety of parks in the city limits. The suburbs seem to be doing well in the Puget Sound Area just wish they were closer.
Oh yeah updated http://www.SKATEARMY.com a little check it out!
need to find progressive but real skaters to skate with need to get in the groove again.
wtf Seattle?
Bothell park ain’t looking so bad after all.
too many artistic people(with power/contract/contacts/relations) in the US now… it’s good when they just create art in their garage or show people who actually want to see it. In this case, it seems forced upon all of us.(it does look nice… just wish the obstacles were designed by a straight dude that skated at least 2 times a week)
Very beautiful Seattle, very progressive…… keep it up, you may be up to San Francisco status one day(if that is what you are going for?)
im a (mostly) street skater from indian,a visiting seattle. i saw pictures of this place and just HAD to get there. Im going to go skate the place tomorrow and report back here and let you guys know what i think. the reason behind this is the fact that i just can’t understand why everyone is saying the place sucks.
The reality is, people are just pissed because an existing park was torn down, one that was more transition-based, (but honestly, kind of crappy) and then it was replaced in a different location for a lot of money, with this. Honestly, it looks fun to me, but I’ve never skated it. It’s all local skate politics.
That’s the spirit!
Has anyone dropped in from the roof yet,next to the glaas doors? The high wall. I remember a comment where someone posted a vid of a high drop in and the skater got caught by the security guard. Is this the same spot?
Kilwag is right on the trannies. They could at least have built in some miniramp/half pipe thingy. This looks ‘built to flow’ and therefore very,uhm,scooterfriendly. Skatepark-building thrown back 35 years…
That shit looks like Barcelona! Cool park, Seattle! Psyched to skate it. Don’t give a fuck who built it, what it costs, or whatever else you guys wanna bitch about. Looks sick, and smooth. You’ll fuckin’ cry if all the parks get wrecked up, or you’ll cry if they build some amazing shit you could be proud of. God, just fuckin’ skate what they give you or build something better.