June 2008

Potrero Del Sol Skate Park Opens July 4th

By  C. Long

San Francisco’s second public skateboard facility is set to open July 4th at Potrero Del Sol Park, located at 25th and Utah streets in the Mission District’s southeast outskirts. The skate park will provide much-needed relief to local skaters tired of dodging traffic, thugs and broken glass at the usual street spots, while nearby food, gas and convenience stores can expect a modest bump in their revenues, especially during the summertime and on weekends. 

San Francisco has been an international epicenter of skateboard culture and industry for two decades.  Over the years the City has been home to dozens of skateboard manufacturers, and is arguably the skateboard publishing capital of the world.  San Francisco originally drew skaters’ attention in the early-1990s through the combination of the yet-to-be-renovated Union Square, the Embarcadero’s Justin Herman Plaza and a pack of gifted local kids, including Henry Sanchez, Jovontae Turner, Mike Carroll, Drake Jones and James Kelch.  Plan B’s 1992 Questionable video, along with subsequent video releases from World Industries, catapulted the City and the kids at Justin Herman Plaza, known as “Embarcadero” or simply “EMB” to skaters, into the international skateboarding spotlight.
Aside from its world-famous plazas, San Francisco itself is a veritable treasure trove of skateable architecture and landscape, including unique residential areas and a robust Financial District made all the more amenable to skateboarding with stairs, gaps, ledges and hills. In reference to footage of City native Tommy Guerrero creatively utilizing the nooks and crannies of Sunset neighborhoods and downtown thoroughfares in Powell-Peralta’s 1985 smash hit Future Primitive, SFGate.com’s Culture Blog declared the City, “A natural skate park.”

Conflicts with authority and commercial interests come with skateboarding.  Skate parks are often proposed as the solution to such conflicts, which draws mixed reactions from skateboarders. While most skateboarders support the construction of public skate parks, many feel that over-reliance upon them can lead to the criminalization of street skating, which isn’t illegal unless specific legislation has been adopted making it so.  A skate park gives authorities a place to restrict skateboarding.  However, the City’s architecture and landscape is often far more appealing to skateboarders than the limited designs and shoddy construction of many of the state’s skate parks.


Many skaters feel that skate parks are antithetical to the spirit of skateboarding. “It’s kind of offensive to be caged up like that,” said Travis Jensen, a 29-year-old author, skateboarder and City resident who pens the City Sports column for the San Francisco Chronicle. Jensen notes that although the new skate park is well-designed and gives skateboarders a safe, family-friendly and hassle-free place to skate, it also provides ample ground for law enforcement to crackdown on street skating, an observation already confirmed by local skateboarders.

“The cops are already telling us to go there and the park’s not even open,” said Zak Gonzalez, 24-year-old Mission resident, lifelong skateboarder and warehouse chief for the Mission-based Highgrade Distribution, manufacturers of skateboards, accessories and a growing line of ecologically conscious apparel.  Gonzalez added that he thought the skate park was well designed, “The park is super sick, it’s got lots of good transitions with lots of skaters in the area...the only other downside is that the other park projects have to be completed before we can skate.”  The other park projects include a curb ramp and parking stall at San Bruno Avenue, replacement of the bathroom doors, and drainage improvements at the playing field at the park’s northwest corner.

“What I like about street skating,” added Jensen, is “I just like being out and being a part of the chaos in the streets.  It just feels good to be out like that, especially in San Francisco. Parks are fun for practice, but even if there’s 500 parks I’m still going to street skate.” This author personally skated EMB in the early 1990sand can testify that the original Justin Herman Plaza’s architecture was far more conducive to the evolution of skateboarding than either of San Francisco’s existing skate parks.

According to Andy Caulfield, 28-year-old team manager and front man for the internationally successful FTC skate shop on Haight Street, “I don’t think there’s anything bad about it at all.  It’s all good. It’s a great start for SF. Hopefully there will be more parks to come.” 

Although situated in a neighborhood with the City’s highest concentration of children under 18 years old, with more than 19,000 kids living within a mile of the park, the location is nonetheless not centrally located to the skateboarding community.  Many Westside skateboarders would like to see a skateboard park inside Golden Gate Park.  “There’s no reason Golden Gate Park shouldn’t have had a skate park years ago,” said Rodney VanB of the Richmond District’s 15-years-strong Purple Skunk skateboard shop. “It’s one of the most famous parks in the world, and it would keep young kids living in the avenues from having to take public transportation somewhere unfamiliar and dangerous.”  Plans are underway to incorporate street skating plazas in Golden Gate Park and at the Duboce Street underpass using Proposition 40 funds; skateboarders and interested citizens can get involved in that effort by contacting the San Francisco Skateboarding Association, www.sfskateboarding.org.

The new skate park opens July 4th and is accessible by the 33 Muni, 25th Street, or the Potrero Avenue or Ceaser Chavez Street westbound 101 freeway exits.  Admission is free.