From LOVE comes Paine

Josh Nims stands on the 12th floor of his Philadelphia office building overlooking the future site of Paine’s Park, a skate plaza project he has dedicated himself to for seven years. Nims, 32, has a law degree — and lesions on both elbows from falls he’s taken during more than 20 years of skating. The grassy triangle of land he looks down on has the eerie silence of any other undeveloped riverfront patch on a rainy day. But Nims hears skateboards clattering to the concrete after aborted kick flips and axles grinding on metal handrails. “The greatest public skate spots that have ever been were spaces that were designed for anything but skateboarding,” he says. 

Like most skaters, Nims knew Philadelphia as a serious skate haven before he set foot in the city. Even non-skaters see evidence of the city’s skateboarding history. “Philadelphia has a unique position of being internationally identifiable with skateboarding,” says Tony Bracali, the architect behind Paine’s Park. “If you go to a skateboarding Web site in Japan you’ll see a picture of LOVE Park on the home page.”

Conceived in 1932 but not constructed until the ’60s, JFK Plaza, aka LOVE Park, was an effort to provide a modern urban space in Center City, Philadelphia. LOVE became the ultimate find in the ’80s when “street style” skating arrived, breaking from using “transitional” terrain like ramps and empty concrete swimming pools. Street skaters integrated themselves into a city, using urban structures like handrails and planter ledges. For 20 years, skaters from around the world reveled in LOVE’s curving granite benches and perfect lines to perform tricks. (Nims’ project pays homage. The motto of the new park reads, “From LOVE comes Paine.”)

But then the city began enforcing a skateboarding ban proposed by then-councilman and new mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, in 2000. Then, Paine’s literally became a lovechild. According to Nims, “undying optimism” and “fairy godmothers waving magic wands to open doors” helped the project evolve from a counterculture concept to an urban revitalization reality. A full staff including a board of directors and a panel of planners and promoters now legitimize Paine’s as a civic project. An array of high-profile supporters — from former Philadelphia mayor John Street to native pro-skaters Stevie Williams and Ricky Oyola — hopped on the project bandwagon. Nims also established the Franklin Paine’s Skatepark Fund to collect private donations and contest winnings to pay its ever-increasing $5 million price tag. A $1 million endowment came in December 2007 from Mayor Street’s Cultural Corridors Fund as well.

Paine’s sponsors latched onto the project’s ability to straddle a dichotomy: A sanctioned space where skaters will discover the kinds of challenges that drew them to Philadelphia in its heyday and a space usable by all members of the community, whether they ride or walk. Jamie Elfant, Paine’s executive director, says all cities should recognize the benefit of skate parks. “Basically, you have a whole new generation of young skaters with nowhere to go and as a result, they skate in the streets or on public or private property that can’t withstand the wear and tear.”

With the skating ban still in effect, traversing Center City means riding in traffic. A study in the Journal of Trauma shows that less than three percent of skateboarding injuries required hospitalization, but skaters were 10 times more likely to be hospitalized in a collision with a motor vehicle. The city has yet to make any moves toward easing or lifting the skateboarding ban.

If project supporters get their wish, Paine’s will become a new epicenter of East Coast skate activity. “Youth participation and engagement is a major thing,” says Bracali, who also stresses that the sands of the sport are shifting. Cutting-edge skateboarding mixes predominant style, he says — street elements and transition-style elements including low ramps, banks and even swimming pool bowls. Unlike a tennis court or baseball diamond, there are no measurable criteria for a skate park.

But Steve Miller, owner of EXIT Skateshop and a 13-year street skating veteran, isn’t convinced that skaters will buy into Paine’s. “The people that ended up at LOVE Park will be the first people to complain about a skate park, even if it’s a skate park designed to mimic a place like LOVE Park. They feel like anything man-made —purposefully made — to be a skate park is a cop-out.” Street skaters are known for their serious dogma when it comes to terrain.

Derek Bradley, a skateboarder, Philadelphia resident and Temple University student, backs this up. “They’ve been talking about this thing for years,” he says. “And it’s just some bullshit park anyway. If they open up LOVE and, you know, make it legal to ride in some other places — just take the rivets off the walls and handrails and quit arresting people for skating there — they don’t have to waste millions of dollars on some park.”

But Nims remains optimistic. Part of Paine’s appeal, he says, is that it isn’t just a skate park. “The authenticity comes from two things: Skateboarders who really know their stuff caring about the project and being involved, and real, non-skateboarding-minded architectural space being designed by an architect with public connectivity in mind,” says Nims. “And then skateboarding on top of that,” he adds with a grin.