Stamford Skatepark: Organized and Online

Forget the cherry trees. So far, the skatepark is one of the most interesting subjects I’ve found in Stamford. It has an active online community and a nice website. There are great pics and gossip on the chatboard. And, they have t-shirts, but keep your hands off, because I am trying to score one of the last few smalls left.

The chatboard is good reading. Some threads offer insight into Stamford politics, like this one about the budget surplus, or another that wonders why the Advocate didn’t mention the park on opening day.

There’s a thread about whether or not the new skatepark manager will enforce the helmet rule, and another one in which the manager herself posts and starts a discussion about helmets and park access. I like to show off Stamford, so I liked the thread about why Stamford rejected hosting a national skateboarding event.

The skateboard site is one of the few true community sites I’ve found. It’s a place where people discuss interesting things on a regular basis and make things happen, whether it’s a skateboarding expo or a BBQ (last Sunday). I think we are building some community here with Stamford Talk and the other kickass blogs in my blogroll, so let’s keep this shit up. Maybe we can be as intense as the skaters or even join forces. (More later on why the Advocate’s new comments system fails miserably in any attempt to build community, but here’s my rough draft about it.)

One other fabulous thing about the Skatepark is that a couple of the guys are photogs/videographers. Bill Helene is regional director of Skaters for Public Skateparks (see their cool site) and has hundreds of pictures of the skatepark at photobucket. Just click on the album titles to the left to see recent ones from Stamford. The pic at the top of the post is from Bill's April 6 album. He has tons more artful pics, but I liked this one because you see Stamford in the background and get a sense of the size of the park.

Scott Frosch, a video producer from Norwalk, has pictures at his blog Frosch-Frog (dude, are you French?) and in one post mentioned doing a documentary on the skatepark, which I think is a superb idea. He also has a hilarious spoof video on American Idol/horror movies called "Sparks" up at vimeo. It's much higher quality than youtube, and made me laugh out loud. "No, I'm not crying. I've just got something in my eye."

If you haven’t done so yet, go take a look at the park. There are benches inside the fence you can sit on. You can drive your car up, park easily, watch for a few minutes, and hit the road. It’s not an involved procedure. I'm lucky because I am a woman and we don't look as pedophile-y as a single man sitting on a bench. One of the many good things about being a woman! We can get away with so much more.