4 June 12–18, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents P eter Baldwin is tiny but mighty. The 10-year-old, who might weigh 65 pounds soaking wet, flies, cutting through the air on the deck of his skateboard, which stays under his feet through the power of grip tape and finesse, before crashing back to the planet and smoothly taking off. A group of spectators, made up of young skaters still shaky on their boards and die-hards who will be buried with their decks, watch as the nationally ranked Baldwin coasts through the make- shift skate park temporarily set up in Cen- zo’s Pizza and Deli parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. Baldwin is there, supervised by his doting parents, to catch air, spend time with his friends, teach other kids his serious skills and help raise funds for the construction of Dallas’ third skate park. It’s a typical weekend on a board for Baldwin, who wants to skate in the Olym- pics one day, but he’ll have to graduate mid- dle school first. Until then, his parents drive him around the state most weekends to try taller half-pipes and deeper bowls than can be found in Dallas. That’s mainly because there just aren’t many options for skaters in the city. When a city lacks skateparks, it becomes a skatepark, which isn’t ideal. Stairs and rails become easy places to slide and grind, and the dents and bruises on public property mean little to the skaters who use city infra- structure as their own personal obstacle course. But the public display of skating fu- els the antiquated stigma of disobedient au- thority-resistant delinquents. The solution is simple. Give the skaters a park to go to, make it accessible and safe with a variety of challenging elements, and many of the gripes about public skat- ing will be resolved. But often, after a new skatepark is plotted, all seems well until the neighbors next door decide skate parks are inherently good so long as it’s not in their backyard, a special strain of NIMBYism. Blueprints are scrapped, and back to the streets, the skaters go. The cy- cle repeats itself. By city planning standards and a needs assessment conducted every 10 years, with the last being in 2016 by Dallas Parks and Recreation, Big D needs 18 skateparks to ad- equately provide for the population, or one skatepark per 75,000 residents. There are two. Houston has six, and San Antonio has 17 skate parks, which is more than it needs. To its credit, Dallas has thrown its wallet at the construction of many new parks without skateboarding features in the last decade, but social stigmas and residential judgment still offer resistance to the open- ing of new skateparks. But a determined push from some city officials, unlikely but passionate advocates and eager riders from all walks of life is using the inclusive ethos that is integral to skate culture to bring the city up to speed, literally. Downtown As a Skatepark S kateboarding was commercialized as an accessible and inexpensive recre- ational activity in the early ’60s. Quickly, a subculture developed, with its own art, music and energy, and by the turn of the century, a Golden Age of skating had been achieved. As skating has evolved into a competitive sport, officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee in 2020, the widespread attitude toward skat- ing has shifted, and the caricature of a long- haired burnout accessorized with a freshly lit doobie and a provocative deck wasting time at the skate park has faded. Well, mostly. But with nowhere to go, defeating the old stereotypes still faces its challenges, says Rudi Karimi, a Dallas Park and Recre- ation board member behind the failed Glencoe Skate Park, which was foiled to a large degree by community objections. “Downtown Dallas is a skate park, whether we like it or not,” Karimi said. “Naturally, our teenagers, our young adults, even young kids have found these places, and they’re going to go and skate there. Wonderful. They’re outside, they’re getting exercise. Are they damaging the infrastructure? Yeah, maybe. Are they an- noying people? Yeah, probably. But they have nowhere else to go. We’ve never had an adequate [number] of skate parks in the city of Dallas.” The first skate park in Dallas, small and close to dilapidated, was built in 2007 at Lakeland Hills Park in eastern Dallas. The second, the first large-scale in-ground park in Dallas, opened in May 2025 at Bachman Lake Park after being approved in a 2017 bond package. It took the city 18 years to get to two parks, and though val- iant efforts to expedite the construction of a third in Westmoreland Park by 2026 are underway, Dallas may never get close to building the 15 needed to meet the needs of the city’s wheel-sport enthu- siasts. Andrew Sherman | UNFAIR PARK | Getting Dallas on board Outmoded thinking and NIMBYism are a grind for advocates pushing the city to build skateparks. BY ALYSSA FIELDS >> p6 Travis Haley rides a rail at an Oak Cliff skate park community event.
