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Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Save Biscayne Skatepark!

Save the Biscayne Skatepark! from steve paul on Vimeo.

The Real Story

by: stevenipaul40

My only interest is skating. Not ice skating, and not rollerblading. You are lame for even thinking that inside your mind.

Skateboarding, that’s it. Maybe a little writing. And I needed a story. A conflict was brewing in the local media cauldron, and it was skateboard related.

The Miami Herald headline read, “Temple members hope to put bump in road to Miami skateboard park.”

According to the article, members of Temple Israel, the historic “spiritual home to many of South Florida’s leading Jewish families,” as described in their website, had beef with skateboarders, skateboard parks, Commissioner Sarnoff, boom boxes, and the City of Miami.

The city has been working towards the building of a public skateboard park for the past two years. Could conflict over the skate park’s proximity to Temple Israel, both on NE 19 St, cause building plans to be halted?

I didn’t even know there were plans underway to build a skate park in Miami. I had even less an idea there was an opposition.

Gonna get the real story for myself. First, to the big ledge. It was necessary I go skating immediately. Get the blood pumping. Need the lungs breathing this thick Miami air. This was going to require vast mental output; lists and figures, voices, and hard facts.

Got my morning line in. Noseslide on the ledge, roll away fakie (backwards), fakie kickflip. Coast over to the picnic table, sip my coffee, smoke my cigarette.

I’m a thirty-two year old skater. Since age ten, I give two fucks about “no skateboarding” signs or security guards. We skated after curfew, post Hurricane Andrew, getting chased by National Guard troops in the Grove. We never get caught.

And we never had public skate parks. The Dade County skate parks in the nineties were Nosebones and Fatbacks. Dusty warehouses, far from where anyone lived, that smelled like sweaty pads. We had Downtown Mafia (DTM), and this whole urine soaked city was our skate park.

I guess skateboarding is like anything else. It grows. It gets big. Nowadays skateboarding is “positive.” Commissioner Sarnoff has been working alongside the skateboard community to build a quality concrete skateboard park in Downtown Miami for two years now. So where is it?

I’d soon find out, public opinion about the City of Miami’s effort to build a skate park had been skewed just in time for the upcoming budget vote in November.


“needles all over the place.”

“A city or a town that has a skate park shows that they value their local skateboard community, and that they respect them,” said Seth Levy.

Seth, a University of Miami graduate, heads the Save the Biscayne Skate Park website, at Miamiskaters.com. He has been working with the City of Miami, and the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, on the Biscayne Skate Park project for two years.

“Seth has done an outstanding job organizing the skateboard community, and raising awareness to gain support from the community. What we’ve heard from Seth is that there is in fact a majority of people who belong to the temple who are supportive of the project,” said David Karsh, who is Director of Communications for Miami Commission Chairman, Marc Sarnoff.

Growing up in Washington D.C., Seth came up through the D.I.Y. (do it yourself) school of East Coast skateboarding.

“We had the same struggle Miami has now. We had no skateboard parks,” Seth said, ““The first park we built, in D.C., we built it in a really crappy part of town. I can understand that there’s a lot of stereotypes about skateboarders, and I kinda want to show them that they’re wrong. I sincerely believe that once this park is built, they’re gonna realize that it’s a positive thing for their community.”

On the Facebook page for the group Save the Miami Skate Park, Seth added, “'boom boxes' haven't been used in well over a decade.”

The location for the new Biscayne Skate Park, on N.E. 19 St., is located across the street from Temple Israel, and adjacent to Miami City Cemetery. It’s a historic section of the city, long known to be saturated with drugs and prostitution.

“There were literally needles all over the place, drug dealers, not a good situation,” Seth pointed out, “Commissioner Sarnoff is the one who really got this project started. He did. Not me. I wasn’t there when it started,” Seth said.


Ms. Eisenberg’s concerns.

Two members of the Miami community have been most vocal, media-wise, in their opposition to the Biscayne Skate Park. Civic leader, Annette Eisenberg (founder of the Downtown Bay Forum) is one of those figures.

I had to reach out to the opposition, get all perspectives, and it was necessary that I not reveal any allegiance to the pro skateboard park agenda.

After a brief phone call, Ms. Eisenberg invited me to her NE Miami home to discuss the proposed skateboard park, and the Miami skateboard scene overall.

It was raining when I got dropped off there. I was dressed like a dork and holding an umbrella.

The power had gone out, and it made the day darker. We sat in her living room, discussing the politics behind Miami’s proposed skateboard park, as the rain poured down outside.

“How did you become involved in this issue?” I asked her.

“Through an association I had with a member of the temple. Their concern was different than my concern. Their concern was the location. My concern was the cost, as a citizen of Miami,” said Ms. Eisenberg.

“Do you remember the name of your associate, at the Temple?” I asked.

“I don’t want to say any names,” she answered.

According to Ms. Eisenberg, the real reason behind Commissioner Sarnoff, and the City of Miami, pushing towards a public skateboard park was to relocate one specific group of skateboarders.

“They wanted to move them from Brickell. However, I found out the population that was actually involved were from Broward and Palm Beach. Their parents drop them off in the morning, and pick them up at night. It’s really a wonderful location, it’s classy,” Ms. Eisenberg said.

There’s nothing classy about cosmetic injectable junkies with bad manners. I remembered breaking my jaw, skating in Brickell, back in 1991. Blood dues paid on concrete. DTM skaters mobbed deep on the weekends, and were from every part of Dade County: North, South, East and West.

It’s no different now. Only thing is that I’m an adult (thick facial hair), the adults from back then are now elderly, and the kids who weren’t even born yet are now young rippers.

“This piece of property happens to be in that C.R.A. (Community Redevelopment Agency) area, but it’s not going to enhance the area that’s there,” according to Ms. Eisenberg, “So it’s primarily intended to take that population out of Brickell and put it elsewhere. And I am not objecting to that because I think it’s horrible that these kids are allowed to desecrate private property.”

This was a shock to my system. I always figured that architecture existed to skate on. I never thought of a buttery ass marble ledge as somebody’s personal property, especially in a city built on cocaine and real-estate schemes. But it always comes back to the boom box dilemma.

“Are these skateboard parks that don’t have the boom boxes? Yes they do, I think they have them outside in their current location. Go down there Saturday or Sunday morning, see what they do. Did you see the pictures that Chuck (Charles Rabin) got downtown there? He called me and said, ‘If I send a photographer down there on Saturday, will I see it?’ I said, ‘You probably will, I can’t guarantee it,’ but apparently he saw it. In Brickell he saw it, he had the photograph in the paper. See, Chuck had asked me, and that photo was taken the Saturday before the C.R.A. meeting, where all the hullaboo took place,” said Ms. Eisenberg.

That C.R.A. meeting “where all the hullaboo took place” had been the first televised media coverage of the “skateboard park controversy.”

“Channel 10 News caught them on camera saying some very terrible things about the skateboard community, and kinda just put a lot of pressure on the city officials. They basically said ‘skateboarders are a nuisance that we don’t need in Miami, at all. They bring boom boxes and drugs to your neighborhoods.’ Things like that, things that obviously aren’t true about a skateboard park. So that’s all they heard. For instance, Channel 10 News, I knew they were doing this story. They had my number. They never called me. They were looking to start something,” said Seth.

Ms. Eisenberg’s concerns related to Biscayne Skate Park were;
1. The cost, $2.2 million dollars, and was the skateboard park really being built for Miami skaters?
2. Where was the money coming from?
3. Boom boxes?

“I respect them for what they’re trying to do,” said Ms. Eisenberg, about Seth and Commissioner Sarnoff.

Confused as I headed out the door, the rain let up and steam rose from the street.

“How’d you get here?” she asked.

“I got dropped off,” I said.

Ms. Eisenberg had a friend of hers give me a ride to Biscayne Blvd. It started raining again.

I had a feeling this “skateboard park boom box hullaboo controversy” resulted from something Seth had told me about.

“A man named Stanley Tate, who’s kind of leading this opposition, wrote an article that was published in the Biscayne Times. It was very, it was against the skateboard park, but it was also just against skateboarders in general,” Seth said, “He was speaking as if he was coming from this synagogue here (Temple Israel). But I know for a fact that he does not speak for them because half the board is in favor of the park. It’s these few vocal members of the temple.”

Tricknology, as defined by the Urban Dictionary, is “A conspiracy to commit fraud on the masses by introducing ideas not based on scientific fact or substance.”

Biscayne Times, Miami Herald, and Channel 10 News? Maybe this was getting interesting. Or maybe it was more bullshit; a select group of citizens micro-managing an issue’s portrayal in the media. Miami’s a fractionalized city.



“skaters care about their community.”

City of Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff is the skateboard community’s strongest political ally.

Sarnoff recently held a movie event at Miami City Hall, in conjunction with the Save the Miami Skate Park event on July 19, 2010. Dozens of Miami skateboarders swarmed the Coconut Grove Skate Park before marching to Miami City Hall. They chanted ‘skate park, skate park, skate park,’ as they walked, skateboards in the air.

Young and old, arrived on the steps to City Hall, they were told that no skateboards were allowed inside. Dozens of skateboards were piled inside skate instructor James Heredia’s brown Jeep Cherokee and they were invited inside for the Earth movie event.

“You all sent a very positive message that skaters care about their community and truly want to make a difference,” Sarnoff said, about the skaters attending the environmentally focused movie.

“The commissioner saw there was no viable place for skateboarders to take part in their sport. So he thought this would be a great location for a state-of-the-art skate park,” Karsh said recently, pointing inside a grassy Biscayne Park.

Sarnoff doesn’t want political attention for getting the skate park built. He just wants the concrete poured. Seth Levy shares the sentiment.

“It’s about the skate park. I have a unique perspective cause I’ve been working with the city for a while, and because I’m a member of the synagogue there,” Seth said.


“fight blight.”

The whole thing smelled a little shitty. The Biscayne Times, Channel 10 News, and the Miami Herald had painted a conflict between Temple Israel and the skateboard community. But Ms. Eisenberg had spoken with me as a private citizen, not as a representative of Temple Israel.

Seth Levy is a Temple Israel member himself, but was not even contacted by Channel 10 News, and said the Miami Herald reporter completely changed his words.

The Miami skateboard community was getting punked out. It was amateur juxtaposition of disinformation, SOT’s (sound bites), elite connections, and crappy writing.

“The process for building the skateboard park, which had been going for a year and a half, kinda just hit a wall. And it was an invisible wall that should not have happened. We are on schedule, to get things done. But then it kinda just stopped. People were making excuses, but no one could really tell us why. Then two weeks ago, on Monday, there was a meeting, just going over the budget, and the skateboard park obviously is included in the budget, and all these members from the temple, that were against the skateboard park, were there and started protesting,” Seth told me.

I knew I had to give Seth and Commissioner Sarnoff a chance to address Ms. Eisenberg’s concerns. Explanations.

But why was the skateboard community, and its supporters, on the defensive? The proposal to build a public skateboard park in Miami has been done through the proper channels.

“CRA funds can just be used to fight blight, and to reinvigorate a neighborhood. Commissioner Sarnoff believes that a quality skate park will indeed reinvigorate a neighborhood. At night, this place is practically deserted. People were concerned about crime in the area. The Commissioner felt that if you have a quality skate park, it’s gonna bring people here, people who are doing productive things, taking part in a great sport,” said Karsh.

Hearing Ms. Eisenberg tell me the skate park was being built for Broward and Palm Beach kids was funny.

“I’m not sure if anyone has checked the drivers license of every skateboarder in the City of Miami. I give them credit if that’s what they’ve done. The fact of the matter is, skateboarding is going on in other parts of the city (besides Brickell). This is designed for the residents of Miami, but if people from other communities want to come here, that’s great. Because they come to Miami, they’ll skateboard, they’ll go to one of our local restaurants, they’ll go to one of our local shops, and it’s gonna bring business to our local community, which is exactly what we need,” Karsh said.

One out of four kids in Miami-Dade County skate, according to a Federal Study on physical fitness. To find out why Miami needs a public skateboard park, I had to ask the ones that roll on the concrete every day.

Needed to talk to the skaters. And I needed to track down the Miami skateboard community’s most vehement critic.


“we’re gonna fight it.”

Stanley Tate (founder of the Florida Pre-Paid College Program) agreed to meet with me on a Saturday at Tate Enterprises, on Opa-Locka Blvd.

“You’re early,” Mr. Tate said, looking at his watch, “I was expecting you at 12:30.”


Stanley Tate has been a member of Temple Israel for sixty-two years. He married his wife there, sixty-one years ago. Mr. Tate was president of the temple for five years, and is a primary financial supporter.

“The pre-school, of Temple Israel, is named after me. The name’s on the front of the building. It’s the John and Stanley Tate School,” Tate said.

Mr. Tate first became aware of the proposed skateboard park through an association at the temple. He called the existing president of Temple Israel and asked if he’d heard about it. He hadn’t.

“’Ya better look into it’,” Tate remembered saying to him and added, “Ya know, on certain services, that are done at the temple, we get as many as four or five hundred people. And they park in the lots, and on the vacant land. A skateboard park, unless it’s very heavily controlled with restrictions on utilization of boom-boxes and music things, it could be a big problem.”

Temple Israel then called a special board meeting. Members of the board of trustees, of the temple, met with a representative of the parks department. Lots of questions were asked.

“After a pretty, uh, educational meeting where people asked a lot of questions, all of them answered, a representative from the parks department came, after they left a vote was taken and it was unanimous. That the Temple Israel should go on record as the trustees being opposed to the skateboard park being there,” Tate said.

That’s when the Temple Israel board of trustees called for a meeting with Commissioner Sarnoff.

“We had a meeting with the commissioner, and the head of the parks department. It was not what I would call the most pleasant meeting, because the commissioner took the position that the city had a right to use it, and we had no right to deny that right. And I said ‘it’s not a question of rights, it’s a question of the proper use of the area’,” Tate said.

The whole controversy, between the proposed Biscayne Skate Park and Temple Israel, seemed more like a misunderstanding.

“We’re gonna fight it and hopefully we prevail,” Tate said, “and we’re not against skateboard parks. I want you to understand that.”



“kids would have a place to skate.”

“Miami needs a public skate park because they’re always complaining about the kids at the triangle and downtown. All over, the Grove, every ledge is capped. We need a free skatepark. All the ones that are free become owned,” said eighteen year old skater, Demmier Vargas.

The Miami skateboard community is made up of a cross section of the city. All ages, gender, and cultures seem to come together through skateboarding. Critics say boom boxes, marijuana smoking, and unruly behavior typify the skateboard community, and the behavior associated with skateboard parks.

“They need to go out and do some research, look at the other parks that are available within the state, and then come back and continue saying what they’re saying,” said Bobby Stack.Stack is in his forties, and has been skateboarding since 1973. His wife and two daughters also enjoy skateboarding.

“My whole family skates. Because the parks are so small, I cannot skate with them. To get em up to a park, I gotta go outta my own county,” Stack added.

The problems with the Coconut Grove Skate Park are widely agreed upon in the skateboard community. The ground is too rough, the wooden ramps are old, and the space is too small. Bottom line, it’s slow and sucky.

“You can never have a wood park that lasts more than ten years, it just doesn’t work,” Seth Levy said.

In the soaring heat, humidity, and moisture of Miami-Dade County, it is common knowledge that wood structures are meant to be temporary. The Biscayne Skate Park on NE 19 St., if built, will be concrete.

“We used to have to skate Downtown Miami,” said Miami skateboard legend Felix Ruiz, “because of that a lot of times we ended up getting into trouble with cops and security guards.”

Miami City Police Sergeant Angel Calzadilla feels bad for having to kick skateboarders out of downtown spots. He says the conflict arises out of private property owners beautifying their building fronts, and creating the perfect terrain for skateboarding.
“People have this mistaken perception that skateboarders are thugs. They’re not. They’re just young kids who enjoy the sport of skateboarding. The fact that they need a venue is quite clear,” said Sergeant Calzadilla.

The main difference for the skaters of Miami, if a public skate park is built, is an economic one.

“Kids would have a place to skate, that they don’t have to pay,” said MIA Skateshop rider, Rene Perez.

This common sense approach to looking at the pros and cons of a public skate park is refreshing. One of the great things about skating is you can just step out your front door and go. Lines and fees and rules just slow everything down, and along with the slow usually comes the suck. The Biscayne Skate Park would make it to where a kid with a Metro-Pass could get to the park and skate. The only money they’d need would be for hydration.

Who knows? Maybe they could even put in a good, cold, municipal water fountain. If the city does build the skate park, I just hope it has lights for night skating.

“It’s not gonna be 24 hours. It’s not. It’s not feasible, because it costs a lot of money to do lights,” said Seth Levy.

Miami skaters are calling bullshit on that.

“Baseball fields have lights, basketball courts have lights, why can’t a skate park?” asked Rene Perez.

Felix Ruiz makes the drive, from Miami, to skate MIA Skate Park in Doral several times a week. He started DTM, and saw plenty of skaters fall by the wayside, in the nineties.
“By bringing a public skateboard park to Miami, it would definitely keep kids outta trouble, keep them from going the wrong way. A lot of my friends I can tell you did, just because of the fact that they didn’t have something like this available back then,” Felix Ruiz said, his shirt and hat soaked in sweat.

Biscayne Skate Park, if built, would be 600ft. distance from Temple Israel.

“The city of Portland, Oregon, did a sound study about skateboard parks. They actually built 19 parks, the city. They commissioned a sound survey of ‘how far away from a skateboard park is it audible?’ And they found that at 200ft., it is completely inaudible. 200ft. and greater, it is completely inaudible. So at 600 ft., there’s no way they’re gonna hear it. Especially with a buffer built in-between,” said Seth.

• New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and a host of lesser cities all have quality concrete, public skateboard parks. Miami is the fourth largest metropolis in the U.S. and has no concrete skateboard park.

• According to a federal study on physical fitness, skateboarding is the fourth most popular sport in the country.

• According to the same study, one out of five kids in Miami-Dade County ride a skateboard.



“My research study was on the disparity between skateboard parks and the number of skateboarders. There’s a lot more skateboarders then the number of skateboard parks can handle. Why does that still exist, when skateboarding’s so much in the mainstream?” asked Seth.

According to Ms. Eisenberg, Temple Israel issued a gag order officially concerning the matter. According to off the record sources, the PR firm GBD has been hired to keep anti-skatepark sentiment in the media. CBS4 jumped in the “hullaboo” with a quick “Skatepark Showdown” piece featuring City Cemetery enthusiasts who claimed it was “disrespectful to even consider” building a skateboard park in Biscayne Park. The Miami Herald followed CBS4’s new angle with another anti-skatepark article. Miami City Cemetery enthusiasts who are “concerned” about Biscayne Skate Park being built on prestigious NE 19 St. They used “there’s always one bad apple” logic to rationalize their prejudice against the skateboarding community.

I don’t even fucking care anymore, I’m going skating. Not ice skating, and not rollerblading. You are lame for even thinking that inside your mind.

Skateboarding, that’s it. Maybe a little writing.
intellectual property of nevergetcaught multimedia.