Mark Hanley, rocking a grease-stained button down that suggests an adeptness with power tools, is gripping the handle of drill. He points out patches of poison ivy lurking along the fence near a skateboard ramp, a gesture much appreciated by everyone in proximity.
“If you ever want to know for sure, it’s always got three leaves and a thumb,” Hanley says. “When it’s giving you a thumbs up, it’s going, ‘I’m poison ivy. What’s up, buddy? Come hang out with me’ and you’re supposed to go, ‘No! Bad poison ivy. How dare you tempt me with your cool guy thumbs up?”
Hanley, a lifelong skateboarder, is one of a handful of tenacious volunteers who gathered under the beating sun this weekend at the old outdoor skate park near Wheels. They’re here to disassemble the unused mini-ramp that will anchor Lakewood’s future DIY skate park.
DIY projects like this, Hanley says, are “the basis of the skate community.”
Nearby, wrenches, drills, power saws, crowbars and a collection of bolts and screws are laid across a wooden table near the ramp.
The prefabricated ramp has sat unused for almost five years, rusted and weather-beaten; taking it apart would require loosening “an ocean of screws,” says Mike Johnston, the owner of Manifest Skate Shop who is spearheading the DIY park project, as he pries up thick slats of metal to load onto the truck that would deliver the pieces to their new home.
In the spring, the City of Durham authorized its Parks and Recreation department to donate leftover skate park materials to the Scrap Exchange that the city acquired when it purchased Wheels in 2020. Saturday was the first time Johnston and others could get on-site to start working on one of Durham’s most unique recycling jobs. Getting the mini-ramp taken apart and reassembled was top priority.
“It’s going to be the first public mini ramp in Durham and in the Triangle ever, so that’s going to be awesome. We might set it up in that garden area temporarily so it’ll be more featured,” Johnston says, referencing the parklet next to El Futuro.
Assisting Johnston with site lead duties on Saturday was Mike Johnston Sr., Johnston’s father. He says it’s pretty cool to see his son following through on his dream to open a skate shop, and taking on a leadership role by showing up to city council meetings and serving on the Recreation Advisory Committee to support the skate community.
In the coming months, Johnston will add manager of a nonprofit to his list of credentials. The new organization, tentatively called Triangle Skate Club, will oversee operations of the DIY park and serve as the vessel for receiving donations to support construction and maintenance of the site. To accommodate the park equipment, the surface lot around the Scrap Exchange in the Lakewood Shopping Center needs to be rebuilt and leveled out, which could cost a hefty sum. Once the mini-ramp is up and running, and Johnston wades through the necessary paperwork to establish the nonprofit, he says they will launch a campaign to raise funds for their construction needs.
Johnston is partnering with two other local skaters on Triangle Skate Club: Laura Gonzalez and Case Cody. The trio represent different disciplines of skating, from skateboarding to roller skating, and hope to unite the styles under one banner.
“I’m the skater, and then, Case is a quad skater, and Laura rollerblades. So the nonprofit we’re making is gonna sort of include all that stuff,” Johnston says.
Cody bought new skates at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic like thousands of other Americans (I wasn’t so lucky). When the new DIY park was announced, Cody jumped at the opportunity to get involved and help shape the park for other rollerskaters.
“It’s really exciting,” Cody says. “I know [Johnston] wanted to collaborate and bring the different disciplines together so this is kind of that perfect thing.”
Skating at Durham’s existing public skatepark at Central Park tends to be dominated by boards, not boots. The street style layout at the downtown skate park, with its mix of grind rails, ramps, stairs, and ledges, all bunched into tight quarters, attracts a specific style of skater, Cody says. Lakewood DIY will offer a set of cascading ramps that allow for a varied style of skating that’s more inviting to quad and inline skaters.
“I like being able to flow around [Durham Central Park?], but I think it just doesn’t attract the same attention as other skate parks in the Triangle, for whatever reason,” Cody says.
Skating, like other outdoor recreation, saw a resurgence during the pandemic because those activities were easier to create social distance. That trend has maintained over the last few years, and local municipalities are starting to take notice, investing in public parks to accommodate the rising trend and provide much needed third spaces. Rob Steinberg, one of the volunteers at Wheels on Saturday, is working on a documentary about the “free spirit” nature of skaters and artists. He says the skate park brings together an eclectic mix of people from all different ages and backgrounds, including youth who many worry are too plugged into harmful technology and lack safe spaces to gather and live out their childhood.
“I talk to folks a lot about how kids don’t leave the house, but then I go to the skate park and I’m like, no, there’s tons of kids out here,” Steinberg says.
Cody agrees. Rollerskaters in Durham often have to travel to neighboring communities like Apex, Chapel Hill and Cary to find parks that can accommodate them, not because the people in the Durham skate community aren’t as welcoming as other cities, but because the limited real estate for street and park skating makes it a challenge to accommodate the varying ways that people enjoying rolling around.
“I know there’s people that love to skate that live in Durham,” Cody says. “So we’re hoping there’ll be another spot available for them to maybe cultivate a different energy.”
Johnston says volunteers plan to meet again at the Lakewood Shopping Center on August 17 to reassemble the mini-ramp. Until then, skaters will keep shredding at the continuously-packed and well-used Durham Central Park skate park where Manifest Skate Shop is hosting its eight-year anniversary celebration on August 16 from 2-6 p.m.
Follow Reporter Justin Laidlaw on X or send an email to [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].