Church Fights Proposed Park for Skateboarders

Anyone who has ever hurtled down a hill on a skateboard knows that a tiny pebble can launch you face-and-elbows-first onto pavement.

Now, skateboarders in the Westlake and Pico-Union areas may learn what a bureaucratic pebble can do as they meet today with the Los Angeles Bureau of Zoning Administration.

A nonprofit group, People for Progress, wants to build a skate park on a dirt lot donated by St. Vincent’s Medical Center in the Westlake area. The group says skateboarders need a place to practice off busy streets and sidewalks, where they annoy pedestrians and risk getting hit by cars.

But an Antioch Orthodox cathedral next door is fighting the $38,000 project, saying the facility would draw throngs of youths and generate noise, vandalism and general havoc.

“The cathedral isn’t opposed to the concept of a skate park,” said Sol Ajalat, spokesman for St. Nicholas Cathedral on 3rd Street. “Skateboarding is flourishing around here. We need a skate park. But this site is too small. It’s just going to burst.”

The issue goes to City Hall today, one measure of the distance the sport has traveled from the beach culture where it originated. In their desire to carve out a place to skateboard, urban youths are now facing the same bureaucratic hurdles and image problems that their suburban counterparts have struggled with for decades.

“They all have this image of being delinquent and drug users,” said Carlos Lopez, the youth program director for People for Progress. “But they’re not.”

Teenagers in these largely immigrant neighborhoods west of downtown are simply opting to display their athletic skill on skateboards, he said, in addition to basketball courts and soccer fields.

“You got to be in such great shape to do this sport,” he said. “Some of the tricks they’re doing are amazing. It takes perfect timing and balance, and it’s great cardio.”

He recalled a group of kids who wanted to go to the beach one weekend and rode skateboards down Wilshire Boulevard all the way to Santa Monica.

Lopez said his group was looking for ways to connect with local children a couple years ago, and discovered that skateboarding was becoming a favorite activity.

People for Progress now offers youngsters skateboard equipment as incentives for volunteer work and good grades in school. On weekends, counselors take a vanload of young people to skate parks in Orange and Ventura counties.

But most days, with no such facilities in urban L.A. neighborhoods, skateboarders are left to curbs, rails, stairs and planters. One group meets every day in front of the old Park Plaza Hotel, across from MacArthur Park.

They circle around a low wall for hours, “busting tail-slides, nose-slides and 50/50 grinds,” according to one of the regulars. They rub wax on the wall so their metal axles slide better along the concrete. Police stop them occasionally, and pedestrians grumble.

“We’re just trying to have fun,” said Jonathan Everett, 16, a Los Angeles High School student. “People try to hassle us, but it’s like any other sport.”

He and his friends skateboard all over town, sometimes to the nearest skate shops in Little Tokyo and Silver Lake. Some days they roll all the way to the Fairfax district. He said it’s a hobby that he can participate in anywhere at any time and that keeps him out of trouble.

Daniel Sosa, 13, a Berendo Middle School student, said he’s addicted to skateboarding, though he had to explain its allure to his parents, who emigrated from El Salvador and didn’t know much about it.

“Once you start skating, you can’t stop,” he said.

Sosa recently lost his skateboard when he was robbed by gang members, a crime that underscores the need for safe places for urban youths to congregate, according to People for Progress officials.

Everett said the proposed skate park must feature the right mix of ramps, ledges and rails to draw young people off the streets.

“It needs everything you see in other skate parks,” he said.

Lopez said People for Progress consulted skateboarders when creating its design. The park would contain two half-pipes, one with a mogul, some rails and a roller-hockey rink. He said that good security will be provided and that the hours of use will not conflict with Mass at St. Nicholas.

But the cathedral’s Ajalat said a convention hall at the church is used every night. He said one worry is that skateboarders might take up limited street parking.

“We have funerals, baptisms, weddings,” he said. “There’s going to be graffiti and skateboarding all over the place.”

If the project is granted a conditional use permit at today’s zoning hearing, Lopez expects to complete construction in July.

Representatives of City Councilman Mike Hernandez say the city needs skate parks. His office has been meeting with skateboarders, the nonprofit group and the church to work out their differences.

“Skateboarding is all over the city,” said David Marquez, a deputy for Hernandez. “You go down Broadway and you’re going to see kids skateboarding. There’s just so much concrete in this city and not enough parks.”