By:Jason Scheer
When Baldwin Skate Park first opened in January 2002, it was to be a safe place for skateboard enthusiasts to practice their passion, a place to have fun without risking injury, and perhaps most important, without drawing the ire of local property owners.
Mark Nicholas of Baldwin often brings his 8-year-old son, Joseph, to the park. He said that the park provides him, as well as parents in general, a strong feeling of security, piece of mind for those helping their kids pursue a sport normally associated with rebellion and bruises.
"It's much safer here than out on the street," he said. "There are no cars to worry about, and you run no risk of getting into trouble."
That feeling, though popular among parents, doesn't seem to carry much weight with some local skateboarders. The park's membership has declined tremendously, according to the Town of Hempstead. Membership peaked at 2,500 after the park opened, but has fallen to 450, said Town of Hempstead spokeswoman Susie Trinkle. A number of factors have contributed to the decline, said Trinkle, including the fact that the novelty of the park has worn off and the weather has been bad.
"I guess maybe the newness of it has worn off, but maybe another aspect is the weather has been a little funny, too," she said. "We had an awful winter, the spring was rainy and even the summer hasn't been that great."
Trinkle said that the town is currently working on a plan to reverse the trend, including generating more publicity for the park. "We're working on that now, and we are going to redouble our marketing efforts," she said. "We want people to know that we are there, and we're going to be working on getting the word out and make sure people know about it."
The problem, however, may not be that the kids don't know about it. Rather, they simply might not want to go. Danny Gustus, 14, of Oceanside, said that skating in the newly constructed park doesn't compare to the experience he gets when skating on the streets. For him, the street offers more freedom, and more fun.
"Skating on the street is free, and there's more stuff to do," Gustus said. "You can build obstacles and have more fun."
As for the skate park, Gustus said, "They always get too overcrowded and it costs a lot of money to skate there."
Kazuki Ishimoto, 14, of Franklin Square, also said that the skate park doesn't compare to the skating experience on the streets. "I actually prefer the street -- I think it's better. There is more freedom in the street, and you're not confined to a little area," he said.
Ishimoto, however, said that he comes to the Baldwin Skate Park because he was tired of butting heads with business owners and police officers who would often chase him and other skaters from parking lots and front yards. "Yeah, the cops would chase us away," he said.
Andrew Nych, 14, also of Franklin Square, agreed with Ishimoto, saying that going to the park is a better alternative than getting thrown out of places around his neighborhood. "When me and my friends would skate on the street, we'd usually get kicked out, and it's just not worth it," he said.
Ishimoto and Nych both said that they would enjoy the skate park more if it were bigger, with more obstacles and more space providing greater challenges and freedom. "They should extend Baldwin, make it bigger, because they have a lot of space and they should maximize it," Ishimoto said.
The size of the park might not be only the problem. John McFeely is the owner of Oil City Skate Park, a 15,000-square-foot indoor facility in Oceanside. McFeely said that despite the generous space of the Oil City park, complete with new ramps and obstacles, business has been on the decline since his park opened in August 2002. "I know that I was doing a lot better in my first month than I am now," he said.
McFeely said kids are abandoning their skateboards in favor of other sports, including in-line skating and high-performance bikes. "I think it is very seasonal -- there is less skateboarding and more in-line and more BMX," he said. "Skateboard sales are way down. The trend seems to be pointing away from skateboarding and pointing towards rollerblading and biking."
Tom Kinirons, a co-owner of Harbor Skate in Baldwin, said that surfing has also seen a resurgence recently, with the release of several surfing movies. "I think that what happened was skateboarding dropped off because surfing became so popular," he said.
McFeely said that the changing trends have forced him to make adjustments, and although he strives to maintain his park's appeal to skateboarders, he is trying to attract other enthusiasts as well. "You can't really make enough money just catering to skateboarders. You have to do other things," he said.
In addition to opening the park to bikes and in-line skates, those other things include a new indoor field for soccer and lacrosse. McFeely said that he decided to build the field, equipped with Astroturf and stationary goals, to help offset the lack of customers that hampered business, particularly when the weather gets cold.
Kinirons predicts the park will see a spike in skaters again in the fall. "I don't think skateboarding will ever die," he said.
