Recently I posted some construction pics of a new upgrade to the old Bellingham Washington park. I remarked that the digging seemed to be a bit deep, considering than the plans on the city’s web site only showed a shallow street park. Reporter John Aguilar got the scoop. I had a little chat with Sage today. He said the deep end of the bowl would be around 10 to 10.5 ft deep and then a shallow end and a over vert pocket, and on the other side of the existing sk8 park is going to be the street course that is the actual concept image that shows in the city web site designed by Grindline. So the street area is the one in the city of bellingham web site , but as Sage said the bowl is the bonus hehe!! Very nice, indeed! Sometimes you get more than what you pay for. It’s not as sweet as it could have been, but it will certainly be better than the steaming pile of Purkiss-Rose that they have there now.

Dave Tobin sent this photo of Jay Meer painting a sign for Glenhaven. Jay is the artist responsible for the mural work at Burnside over the years. Five more days and the sucker is open!

Our senior Mexico City transplant correspondent (Senior, and Señor) John Aguilar sent in these pics of Dreamland construction going on in Bellingham Washington. This is phase 2 of an existing skate park built by Purkiss Rose It’s a Grindline design that apparently dates back to March of 2006. The rendering shows what appears to be a relatively shallow beginners area. It’s hard to tell from the photos but it appears that they might be digging something deeper than that. Who knows, maybe the plans have changed. It has been over a year. More after the jump

Earth Patrol Media has some pleasant shots of the Prosser Washington park that MC talked about in his roadtrip to Irrigon post. It shows the park from different angles and gives you a better feel for the overall layout. Enjoy!

In spite of the fact that it was pissing down with rain in Portland Saturday morning; MC, Rich Burton and Shawn Reinert hit the road for the Irrigon Skatepark Grand Opening. Smay was right behind us with Lance Leisher and Brogan Robinson and Chris Stevens. The new Grindline creation was packed, 200 people or more watching and skating. The park was as unique as we had hoped but just crazy crowded. The grass hasn’t grown back yet so the crowd tracked a lot of sand into the park and everything was smaller and tighter than I expected but it’s a really fun skatepark.

More Arizona action from Old Man Army. Doubles. Nice shot, huh? You have to see it to believe it. Update: Added an alternate shot.

Rich Burton mounted lights to a helmet and we took it for a spin the other night at Pier Park. It was an amazing experience. Here’s a shot I took of Shawn Reinert. FujiColor 800 film, 30 second exposure. Rich has more photos here.

I just don’t know what to grind first! Glenhaven’s grand opening is April 27th at 3:00 p.m. More April 7, 2007 Glenhaven images at Skate Portland.

A group called The Side Effects of Urethane working in conjunction with the U.K. skate rag Kingpin have designed and mostly built a skateplaza in some unused tunnels in London. These guys are the Dreamland of street parks, I’m declaring it. Make it so. They even followed the D.I.Y. ethic of funding and making it themselves on unused public property. Unlike London’s tradition of squatting however, they managed to get permission first. More London Skateplaza action after the jump. [Source: Sleestak]

The setting: The Riverwalk in Naperville Illinois. The time: About 1984. How many times can you say “I was the first person to ever skate this?” Now everyone skates, that’s getting harder and harder to say. I go back to Naperville to visit family every other year or so. Now they’ve got a crappy prefab skatepark, but back then there was not much of a scene. I have to assume Naperville’s current park is crappy because I’ve only looked at it from the car. That town has money to burn but somehow they got suckered into a bunch of wooden ramps on a concrete slab. Larger versions and a little more about the new skate park after the jump.