sanity fair Skate Away!
Pat Driscoll brokers a deal that keeps skateboarders using a city park P
at Driscoll acts like a big kid some- times. And that’s a good thing. Syracuse’s commissioner of Parks,
Recreation and Youth Programs who is now serving under his second mayor (the first being his first cousin, Matt Driscoll), seems to know how to get along. This summer he got called in to a situation where he was, in some minds, supposed to play the role of the heavy.
The tennis courts in Ormond Spencer
Park, near the former site of the old Kennedy Square apartments had become a bandit skate- board park. Some neighbors weren’t happy to see that kids from all over the county had commandeered the tennis court. Where some saw confrontation, Driscoll
saw an opportunity for harmony. It’s a place to play, he thought, and people can learn to play together. “There’s a desire to coexist,” says Driscoll. “There’s no reason why you can’t skate on one court and play tennis on the other.” Driscoll talked to both the neighbors con-
cerned with the park and with the (mostly) young skateboarders, who had been setting up their makeshift park and honing their skills. Driscoll could have read the rule book to the skaters, told them to use only designated skating areas in the city. He could have come in like a lawyer, sadly shaking his head and talking about liability, the excuse that kills any number of fun ideas. He could have bought into stereotypes
about skaters scaring away other parkgoers. He could have told them to wait until next year, when a new skate park is supposed to be
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Syracuse New Times September 8 - 15, 2010 5
“I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.”
- Lyndon B. Johnson
built in Eastwood. But as a big kid, he knows that talking to a skater about next year is like saying never. “Skaters have been sort of pushed out of
downtown,’ says the commissioner. “Down- town business owners get upset when they skate over monuments or use curb cuts. There is concern that someone will get hurt. Here we had a responsible group saying ‘we need a low-key place to hone our skills.’” And—this was important to Driscoll—the
park is on a bus line. Students from Syracuse University, kids from all corners of the city and even outlying towns were coming to skate at the park. They were creating their own community space. Driscoll, who stays in shape but is not
himself a skater, admired the dedication of the skateboarders and their seeming ability to defy gravity. “I’m intrigued by how they do this stuff.” He set out to devise a way for it to work. He also understood the history of Ormond
Spencer Park, which grew up with the Ken- nedy Square Apartments on the east edge of downtown in the 1970s. “Ormond Spencer was a standout athlete at St. Lucy’s Acad- emy. He later went on to be a member of the Syracuse Police Department, and he died an early death. A lot of good people in that neighborhood have worked hard to keep his memory alive.” Now there’s a court set aside for skaters,
and one for tennis players. “The skateboard- ers are providing the ramps and the jumps,” Driscoll explains. “They got very creative with some simple materials.”
Pat Driscoll: Recognizes that recreation comes in many forms.
The city will provide a trash can and the
skaters will agree to make sure the trash is picked up. Driscoll found that many of the skaters were environmentally conscious, so he is prepared to get them a recycling container as well. Skaters will ply their craft at their own risk, the city will assume no liability, and the skaters won’t intrude on the tennis court still being used for tennis. “They’re trying to do something positive
in our parks, and it’s nice to see that activity,” says Driscoll. People find it easy to pick on government bureaucrats. Lucky for us there is a guy in charge of our playgrounds who likes to play.
BY ED GRIFFIN-NOLAN
o
69 Beers On Tap. Zero Guilt.
MICHAEL DAVIS PHOTO
COver100
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