Spott Dreams of Skate Parks: Deja Vu SK8

Deja Vu SK8

Skateparks should be original concrete sculptures, designed by professionals but directed by the people who are going to use that park. 60 foot flat bar? Done. Oververt Key Hole? Sure thing. Replica of some local street feature? You Bettcha!

Basically, no 2 parks should be the same, even with similar features. Features like Pier 7 Ledges & China Banks Ledge are found in tons of parks but can be integrated in different ways.

Neenah, WI & Woodhaven, MI

In the article "The Perils of Pre-fab" I mentioned how modular parks are frequently a bank, box, quarter and rail bolted to the ground. Not much variety when your ramps are produced in a factory in Oakville

Pickering Skatepark. VF&A parks tend to have the Safety Rails, Wading Pool 'Bowls', Rounded Ledges and Boxed-in Quarter Pipes.

Living in Pickering, there were always comparisons between our park and the one in Bowmanville as they shared several of the same characteristics. In further travels, I found those distinct features at a bunch of other parks that were built around the year 2000. Pickering was quite progressive when it built a public skatepark in the late 90's. This was a time not known for the great skatepark companies we have now and the Design contract went to Landscape Architecture firm Victor Ford & Associates. This firm is still in business today but have, thankfully, left skateparks to the experts. The Pickering skatepark, being the only skatepark around (Beasley being the next closest and another VF&A project) was popular. The story allegedly goes, Bowmanville saw the popular skatepark (as bad as we know it is now) and said 'Give us one of those'.

Bowmanville even got the mini-ramp with no coping.

Here's a few more examples.

Windsor's Forest Glade Skatepark has some of the Boxed- in features

Boxed-in QP at Beasley Park in Hamilton

Maple Park in Burlington has the same QP, Wading Pool Bowl and Ride-on Flat Rail as Pickering.

I often refer to parks as VF&A era which means a bad park of the late 90's to Early 2000's.

In my travels around Ontario, I have since found more skatepark twins...and a triplet.

2024 Update!

I was recently on a road trip to Upstate New York and checked out what I was sure would be a bad park. I was amazed to find a mirror copy of the first Georgetown Skatepark in Lewiston, NY. Every terrible thing is there from the no-coping ledges to the big square rail. Lewiston (above) does have a better rail but the park is garbage (a local admitted as such). Thankfully Georgetown (an early VFA park) has been rebuilt. Hopefully Lewiston decides to do the same.

Recently, I was contacted by Tom in Exeter, ON asking if I had any info on his local. I hadn't been there yet so I directed him to VF&A. They replied that they hadn't been part of that project (they didn't even reply to my email:( ). I took a trip out and saw a ton of similarities between Grand Bend and Exeter.

Exeter

Exeter features a big, mellow clamshell, mid-bank rail, super tight QP & metal corner benches.

Grand Bend

Grand Bend also features a big, mellow clamshell, 2 mid-bank rails, super tight QP & metal corner benches.

The next pair of parks are from a trip a few years ago. Rodney and West Lorne are about 10km from each other. It's pretty clear their skatepark designs were drawn with the same pen.

HAD SATAN?

You'd be forgiven for thinking this was two angles of the same park. Must have had a coupon for orange paint.

OMG. Maybe it was tractor paint? This is my buddy's 1940's era tractor.

In June of 2021, I took 2 friends on a trip to hit some new parks and re-visit Port Dover for only the second time since wrecked my ankle there in 2011. Spoiler Alert - I landed on my head. Anyways, We ended up in Port Stanley, an old park I thought at the time may have been a VF&A park. We had some fun there even though I fell again. Video of the trip and fall is HERE.

The park had some awful construction. This was a 2 inch gap in the angle iron. The rest of the park showed some understanding of layout and flow.

Banks and quarters on both ends for speed with some obstacles in the middle.

OK, Neat. But I didn't think I'd see another park like this again until...

On a trip the next year I wound up in Mount Brydges...

and Glencoe

The Sportsfield Complex is called Project 2000 which leads me to believe all these parks were built around that time. Myself and others have tried to find some, any info but have failed resulting in the triplets being known as the Y2K Mystery Parks.

Last for this park twin for this post is a separated at birth senario...kinda

Senoma Heights Skatepark is in Vaughan, ON