Skate Park Opens, but Its Use Has a Catch

For most skate park fans, the sole requirement for jumping ramps and banking pipes is to show up with a trusty skateboard.

But at a new facility in Los Angeles’ Westlake district there’s a catch.

Youths can use the park five days a week, but in return they promise afterward to jump off their boards and step into the on-site classroom. There they take an array of classes and volunteer programs designed to help at-risk youths avoid the area’s urban ills.

Paul Castro, 13, has taken classes on drugs and gang prevention. And has volunteered to clean up garbage-strewn empty lots near St. Vincent Medical Center.

The skating program is a fair deal, he said.

“I didn’t know [marijuana] kills brain cells and makes you dumb. And I learn tricks too,” he said. “That’s why I come here.”

Judging by the turnout Sunday afternoon at the park’s grand opening, many youths echo Castro’s reaction. About 100 young skaters showed up and many said the fenced-in assemblage of portable ramps, rails and quarter pipes would be a much welcomed urban oasis.

The project is the brainchild of People in Progress, a nonprofit community group that has been trying for several years to transform the once-vacant lot up the hill from MacArthur Park.

The idea is to reward teenagers’ positive activities in an area where negative behaviors are all too common. The rules are strict: Children must maintain a C average, attend the wide array of classes, and be subjected to drug and alcohol testing.

Those who don’t follow the rules, don’t get to skate. It’s harsh medicine, but the long-term benefits are worth it, say organizers.

“We want to intervene now on potential problems of the future, to give these kids a chance,” said Bram Roos, a member of the organization’s board of directors.

The park’s opening culminates several years of efforts to overcome bureaucratic red tape and opposition from neighbors who feared that the skate park would attract rowdy teenagers and drug activity.

The 16,500-square-foot facility--built on a lot that once housed an apartment building--is in one of the city’s poorest, most crime-ridden areas.

The pressure of urban life was sadly illustrated Sunday by the absence of one of the youths who fought for the park: He couldn’t attend the opening because his father recently killed his mother, then turned the gun on himself.

“We deal with kids, some of them who don’t know where the next meal will come from,” said Reggi Hulkower, the organization’s executive director. “Or whether their electricity will work, or whether mom will come home. They come here to forget about all that.”

Organizers said the program is one of the few that hinges skate park access with classes and volunteer work. Youths must sign a contract that prohibits them from bringing in guns and drugs. And it asks them whether they are on probation or parole.

James Maradiaga, 12, has been begging his mother for weeks to sign him up. Drugs aren’t a problem, he said, but his report card still doesn’t make the grade.

“If he gets an F, he can’t skate,” said his mother, Elva Elena Maradiaga. “That’s why I brought him, so he gets better grades.”