The park opened officially Saturday, with city officials mingling with skateboarders young and old to kick off the facility downtown near the Durham Farmers Market. Hundreds of skateboard enthusiasts were there to watch exhibitions by pros from Toy Machine and DC Skateboarding, and to admire the new park. Its ramps, rails, quarterpipe, steps and street clam were designed with the advice and counsel of local skateboarders.
"It's really nice," Aspen Kincaid, 16, of Raleigh told The Herald-Sun's Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan on Saturday. And in words that must have been music to the ears of elected officials and city boosters, Kincaid added this observation: It's going to be really good for Durham. It's better than Raleigh -- more street skating. They used their money better here."
Aside from its concrete -- so to speak -- advantages for skateboarders, the new park offers a couple of other salutary aspects.
For one thing, it is a welcome recognition that city-sponsored recreation facilities can and should be more than traditional venues such as tennis courts, softball and baseball diamonds, soccer pitches and gyms. While skateboarders come in a wide range of ages, there's no doubt a primary attraction of this facility will be young enthusiasts who may not find some of those more time-honored offerings particularly attractive.
And, as we have said before, it continues the accelerating trend to bring new life and vitality to long-neglected parts of downtown. The booming success of the Durham Farmers Market with its still relatively new pavilion, the enhancements to Central Park, the refurbishment of the old Durham Athletic Park -- all are recasting the northwestern edge of downtown. Follow the reoriented Foster/Blackwell streets corridor from the DAP south to the American Tobacco Historic District, and you have a vibrant swath through the center of downtown.
The park is even helping to boost downtown's greatest lingering need -- retail activity. Nick Spaulding moved his Umamaa Boardhouse close to the park in anticipation of its opening.
Alfonso Harrington, 16, who had come from Person County with a friend for the opening Saturday, termed the park "pretty cool" and said "we're going to be here a lot."
We're glad to hear that, and hope many others will be there often, too.
