Pin It

A Tough Grind

It took four years, but Denver's skateboarders finally have a park to call their own.

A A A Comments By David Holthouse Thursday, Jul 19 2001

Fletcher is 33 and always wears a helmet while skating. "I'm too old to worry about whether it's cool anymore." He started working with the Skate Park Task Force about two years ago and regularly travels to the construction site on days when the workers are pouring and shaping cement. "I'm here to represent the skateboarders," he says. "We see things in angles and curves that others don't."

Fresh cement has been poured along one wall of the bowl beneath the tarp. It's drying quickly, and in Fletcher's opinion, it's drying in the wrong shape. "There's a bump in it," he keeps telling the workers with trowels, who continue to speak Spanish and more or less ignore him. "Guys, there's a bump."

John Johnston

Charly Lewis has been on the Skate Park Task Force since he was in the sixth grade.

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Weekly Newsletter: Our weekly feature stories, movie reviews, calendar picks and more - minus the newsprint and sent directly to your inbox.

Fletcher takes his case to the foreman. "It's coming together as an 'S' shape when it needs to be more of a 'C,'" he says. The foreman orders the workers to cut down and start reshaping the cement, which is obviously beginning to set. Time is short. Two men in hard hats start spraying chemical retardant on the cement to slow down the irreversible process. Fletcher draws shapes in the air with his hands. The foreman watches closely. It's an odd scenario: a construction foreman who knows next to nothing about skateboarding taking instruction from a skateboarder who knows only a little about construction.

Fortunately, the architect is there to act as translator. Taylor pulls out a pad and sketches the needed changes: "What we have is this; what we want is this." The foreman nods and starts working the cement himself. Ten minutes later, the wall has been redone to Fletcher's satisfaction. "You can see why a skater needs to be here," he says.

A car pulls up outside the skate park, and two skaters in their late teens get out with their boards. Bernstein calls out to them, "Just a few more weeks, guys." He thinks he recognizes one of them as a kid he ran off from the park a few nights back. "I caught him and a friend skating and told them they had to leave because they were trespassing. He said to me, 'How can we be trespassing if you're building this for us?'"

Bernstein readjusts his sunglasses, then smiles. "You know, I didn't have a very good answer for him."