(Still) Saving The Turf
It was way back in 2009 that rumors were floating around about a possible rebirth of the Turf when the current tenants were allegedly not going to renew their lease. That turned out to be false, or so we thought. Then it turned out to be sort of true again, in that they had obviously vacated the property during the freeway ramp construction, which led to the temporary excavation in 2010. The locals didn’t give up! In 2019 it was announced that WDOT sold the land to the city of Greenfield for one dollar. The plan was to turn it into a new (old) skatepark, the old bowls would be brought back to life and new terrain would be added outside the existing footprint. Why can’t I find an internal S&A link to that story? We must have been on hiatus… Great news right? Would they do it? Yes! I had always been skeptical about the ability to just patch up the old bowls and add some new coping, and apparently I was right. They ended up scrapping that plan and instead took “detailed 3 D sonar” scans of the bowls that would allow them to excavate and rebuild as close to the original as possible. Let’s talk about that after the jump, OK?
– Photos: Save The Turf
My experiences at the Turf all happened between 1984 an 1992, and the park closed for the second time in 1996. I was by no means a local, but I did go there a handful of times. My comfort zone was the capsule, but I would occasionally join my friends in the triple bowl ( I thought we called it the combo bowl, but I might be misremembering.) At least once a visit I would take a run or two in the keyhole bowl. In my recollection the triple bowl was by far the most heavily sessioned part of the park, with the capsule coming in second by half. The keyhole was almost always empty and the footie bowl and ditch seemed to be used when you got tired of trying to battle for a run in the triple bowl.
The pessimist in me thought if you only have a fixed budget, why would you rebuild those areas of the park that were already out of fashion in the 80’s and hardly used? These days I imagine my beloved capsule wouldn’t see much action and at most maybe 3 of the 5 original bowls would be used. What do I know anyway? I’m old. Old enough to have skated those original bowls… Fortunately the budget for the project includes new terrain as well as the old classic Turf bowls. In an added twist, once the decision was made to demolish and rebuild instead of just repair, there was talk of adding coping to the ditch, AKA The Lip Slide Gully. I have to balance my pessimism with my OCD. Why rebuild that old shallow, mostly unused gully if you’re not going to make it historically accurate? Is there even a point to making it historically accurate? In 20 years, most people that rode those old bowls won’t be around anyway. Why not update it? As I recall that ditch/gully was pretty shallow, probably made to 70’s freestyle specs. In the 80’s it was the kind of thing you’d be stoked if you found it in the wild somewhere, but as something you had to pay to skate, it was less compelling. Speaking of historical accuracy, Surf and Turf/The Turf was originally indoors, with giant sliding garage doors that could be lifted in warm weather. The 2021 concept plans for the phoenix version called for the rebuilt/repaired section be indoors as well. However, building costs skyrocketed and covering the OG bowls is not in the budget anymore, although they are open to adding one afterwards if the funding ever materializes.
Two questions:
Who is building the park? That’s an easy one. Grindline, so you know it’s in good hands (and trowels.)
Will they still require copers? (IYKYK)
There’s ton of pics over at Save The Turf, here are a few of the highlights. There’s also an official website (theturf.org) but it doesnt seem to be updated very regularly. Don’t forget to get your Turf Merch from Beer City, all profit from those items go to rebuilding the Turf. If you wan to see some pics of the 2010 excavation, just scroll through our posts tagged with The Turf.
Turf Merch, including a the old school logo on a deck. Get yours from Beer City Skates.
Fox 6 News in Milwaukee produced a 45 minute episode about the rebirth of the Turf on the podcast Open Record. In it you get to hear the current mayor of Greenfield, Michael Neitzke talk about going to see punk bands like Milwaukee’s own Die Kreuzen and Black Flag, among others. It’s actually a pretty good listen even though it’s produced outside of the skateboarding community.
