Starting in 1989, Daria Brezinski’s sons and their friends became obsessed with skateboarding. The public spaces conducive for the sport, the downtown area walkways, schoolyards and other public concrete surfaces, became annoying to citizens who found it difficult to walk and maneuver. Even her backyard, equipped with a half-pipe, presented intolerable noise problems for neighbors. When the city threatened to arrest children skateboarding in public places, Brezinski and her youth-filled entourage began the process of building a public skateboard and bike park for youths.
Unfortunately, as the wheels of politics and progress move slowly towards novelty, out-of-the-box and unconventional concepts, the park was built long after her sons left home for college. The following is a representation of the actions involved over the years to introduce, convince and materialize an innovative concept through the political process in the form of articles, letters, architectural designs, meetings and stonewalling that led up to the completion of the park in 2000.
(Not included are the conversations with Skateboard companies and magazines who solicited their patrons to a contest to design the ideal skateboard park which led to the enclosed California architectural design.
Pictures
Letters
A succession of documents that demonstrate the progression for building a Skateboard Park from letters to designs to meetings.
1) PLANNING A SKATEBOARD PARK: Wood or Concrete: Designed for Youths or Ease of Adults?
2) PLANNING A SKATEBOARD PARK 1-61 Birth of a Skatepark
3) ARTICLES
Caricature, Cartoon Skateboard Lady, 1995 (scanned)
Charlottesville Skateboard Park 1990
City, County Should Try To Help Teens 1994 (scanned)
Council Tells Skateboarders to Stay Off Mall, 1995 (scanned)
Councilors to Reconsider Skateboarding, 1994 (scanned)
Mall Skateboarding Ban Possible, 1994 (scanned)
Officials Explore Park Ideas with Skateboarders, 1994 (scanned)
One Bumpy Ride, 1994 (scanned)
Skateboarders Brace for Ban on the Mall, 1994 (scanned)
Sidewalk Surfers Wheel Deal, 1994 (scanned)
Skateboard Given to Mayor, 1995 (scanned)
Skateboard Park Given Tentative OK, 1995 (scanned)
Skateboarders Set Free on Mall, 1994 (scanned)
Skaters May Get Facility, 1996 (scanned)