Save our pavement! Tompkins skaters cry
BY GABE HERMAN
Local skateboarders are pushing
back against a Parks Department
move to lay down synthetic turf
in a corner of Tompkins Square Park
that has been popular with skateboarders
going back three decades.
The planned upcoming East Side
Coastal Resiliency Project would close
East River Park for three-and-a-half
years while 8 to 9 feet of dirt is piled
up there to protect against fl ooding.
Meanwhile, to compensate for that park
going offl ine, the Parks Department
intends to make alterations to other
nearby parks to provide supplemental
green space.
But despite Parks calling these modifi
cations “improvements,” the idea of
turfi ng over the northwest corner of
Tompkins Square Park has sparked a
major protest campaign from the “skating”
community.
Tompkins is one of fi ve sites slated to
get the new synthetic turf, to accommodate
many of the hundreds of baseball
and softball players who currently play
in East River Park, according to Parks.
“The decision to install turf in the
designated location in Tompkins Square
Park in 2020 wasn’t made lightly,” said
Crystal Howard, a Parks spokesperson.
“It is part of neighborhood-wide
enhancements being made to provide
The #savetompkins hashtag has become popular on Instagram. Extinct
MFG Co., a local skate brand, posted this photo of Tompkins Square
skateboarders and asked people to sign the online petition.
supplemental recreational space for the
community writ large during the reconstruction
of East River Park.
INSTAGRAM/EXTINCTMFG
“The reconstruction at East River
Park is a $1.45-billion fl ood-protection
and park-improvement project that responds
to the severe threats posed by climate
change,” Howard added, “and will
provide much-needed fl ood protection
for 110,000 New Yorkers in this area.”
She noted that the plans were presented
at community board meetings
and open houses.
But the skateboarding community
wasn’t consulted, according to local
skater Adam Zhu, who started an online
petition to save the asphalt. The
petition has garnered more than 21,000
signatures so far.
“Once I learned the grass was going
there,” Zhu said, “I felt it would destroy
the DNA and culture of the neighborhood,
and exclude and displace the
skateboarders, who are an important
part of the community.”
Zhu, 22, said he grew up skateboarding
in the park and has now been doing
it there for more than 10 years.
“It’s my home,” he said. “It’s the place
that I consider extremely important to
the identity of the neighborhood.”
Zhu and two friends started the
hashtag #savetompkins, and asked people
to share it and send it to city offi cials,
as a way to focus the voices of the plan’s
opponents. The response to the Twitter
campaign was so great, Zhu decided to
start the petition at Change.org.
Some of the petition signers have also
posted comments of support.
“Tompkins needs to remain the
same,” wrote William Strobeck. “Generation
after generation it has been a
melting pot for all types of artists.”
“This is a great skate spot and skateboarding
kept me out of trouble as a
kid,” wrote Sean Okonsky.
The outpouring of support on the
online campaign and petition was not
surprising to Zhu.
“That’s how important the park is to
so many people, and how culturally important
the park is,” he said.
Other park users, like softball and
hockey players, had their interests heard,
said Zhu, who noted that those groups
pay for permits. He said the hockey
people were asked about supporting the
skaters’ cause, but they declined and
said Parks had already contacted them
concerning a compromise plan for their
area of the blacktop.
The impressive online campaign,
along with media coverage, does seem
to have produced some progress,
though. Zhu said that on Tues., July 9,
he and other locals met with a group
from Parks, including Bill Castro, the
department’s Manhattan borough commissioner.
The meeting was held in the Tompkins
Square Library basement, Zhu
said. The Parks offi cials told them they
were trying to prioritize the needs of
youth leagues that are facing being displaced
from East River Park.
In response, Zhu said he made it
clear that the skaters moving someplace
else, away from the Tompkins spot, was
unacceptable.
“Its cultural and historical signifi -
cance can’t be replaced; it doesn’t work
that way,” Zhu told this paper about the
Tompkins location.
Even moving to another spot within
the park is not an option, as far as the
skaters are concerned.
“There’s another basketball court in
Tompkins and no one skates there,”
Zhu stated. “It doesn’t hold the same
history.”
Zhu stressed that skateboarding is
very site-specifi c, involving factors like
the smoothness of the ground and the
surrounding environment.
“There’s something about this place
that people keep coming back,” he said
of the longtime Tompkins “skaters’ corner.”
Although bigger skate parks have
been built in the city, Zhu claimed they
aren’t as approachable and comfortable
as Tompkins. He said the East Village
park is a place for marginalized people
to come, and is open to all people. He
added that the number of girls skateboarding
is now on the rise, but that
they feel less comfortable in big skate
parks versus the more approachable
Tompkins spot.
The Parks reps at the July 9 meeting
said they understood the skaters’
concerns and felt optimistic a solution
could be found, according to Zhu.
“I defi nitely left the meeting feeling
hopeful,” he said. He added that the
Parks group said they would be in touch
again early next week.
16 July 18, 2019 TVG Schneps Media
/Change.org