The Warren DIY Park

Yesterday I was coming home from the grocery store and took a different route than usual. I was debating doing a couple of things out side and I couldn't tell if it was going to rain or not. I guess taking the long way home was my own way of seeing if the rain would come or not? I don't know. I don't understand my own decisions a lot of the time.

Anyways, the long way home takes me past my local DIY park. It's not your typical DIY park as it's located at an operating elementary school. The first stage of the park was done so long ago and I am too young to know how it all came together in the first place. I know a friend of mine was involved but I've never asked him how they got approval from the school or anything of that nature. But I guess I probably should.

I did a little research and found the DIY first started in 2005. I was 12, and I lived roughly an hour away from here, so it wasn't on my radar back then. Well, I guess I should say it wasn't on my parents' radar. I knew about it, but when you're 12 and you live in a very rural area, your activities are pretty heavily dictated by your caretakers.

This park has always been 100% funded and built by the skate community. No one has ever gotten paid for their work, and all the materials have come from donations, fundraisers, raffles, etc. from the skate and snowboard community. I think they just kind of made a deal with the school and the school trusted the community to keep the park a safe place for all.

I believe the first build, in '05, was the above mini ramp and the blue QP with extension on the other side. Other than that, I believe there was a leftover concrete pour that led up to a gnarly rock stall. I think I remember that existing when I first skated here. It was a super narrow concrete path on the dirt leading to a jagged rock. I remember spending hours trying to rock and roll stall the rock, or something like that. It was so difficult to try to land back on the path but so fun to try. As with any DIY park, I'm sure there were also plenty of random home made boxes, rails, fly ramps; whatever laying around the rest of the park. A lot of flatground space back then.

Now, again, I'm no park historian, as I moved to this area less than 3 years ago. BUT, as far as I know, and judging off a collection of photos I'm viewing; this QP(above) was the next step. There's a little shelf on the left hand side there, and as you progress in that direction, the pour gets a little chunkier and sketchier. The little curb/slappy/tranny thing on the far side was also the result of a leftover concrete pour. It's actually one of my favorite features. It gets repainted from time to time to keep it sliding well.

While we're on the subject of paint, and looking at this wall; I'd like to add that a lot of the artwork at this park needs to be redone. Specifically this wall. It's a little sad to look at. Throughout the years plenty of bad artwork has been covered and redone here and I think it's time for donut and pizza boy to go! Along with the piece in the middle.

Next came the plaza-ish kind of thing on the far left of the picture above. It's your standard up-flat-down, with a tall A-frame ledge on one side and a shelf ledge jutting out of an oddly shaped wall on the other. Beyond the other side of that, is a very strange kind of triple bump with transition all around. It's really hard to explain the design of those bumps, and the construction fencing is kind of blocking it in my photos.

I wasn't planning on doing much "history" of the build when I shot these photos, but then I discovered an archive to help me understand the development I missed. Therefore, I didn't really point my camera at any sort of specifics; like the bumps. But you'll see them someday. I took these while I was trying to get my first skate session in of the year before the rain came so I was in a bit of a hurry.

Ok, at this point we're done with the "historical" part. I think there was a long break between everything I just described and the past few years. I remember when I used to come here it was only the features described. It was cool- definitely, and great for the locals. But I lived in the city and there wasn't really any point in anyone driving an hour to come skate it. Mostly because the pavement is absolutely horrible between features. All the concrete the guys have poured over the years is of great quality; but the pre-existing court surface is really bad. Coming off the concrete to that asphalt almost feels like hitting pebbles. You have to sprint, deck drop, and push as hard as you can just to actually get halfway up any transition.

Which brings us to modern times. Roughly three years ago, we poured that yellow no-coping "pyramid" type thing pictured above. Not the bowl corner, nor anything on that side of it; it was just the yellow coping-ed part for a good year or so. It was awesome. One of the main guys who headlines the fundraising and builds has become a concrete worker by trade. I wouldn't be surprised if his career interest sparked from building this park as a teenager. He has mastered the craft, and everything that has been built over these past few years is absolutely impeccable.

This was right around the time when I moved to the valley and started becoming involved. It became my home park; which was funny to me. But I grew to love it quickly, even though you have to break a serious sweat to get to coping.

Things have been rapidly progressing since that. Next came the bowl corner, the boob, the doorway. Last summer we started setting up to pour a deck for the bowl corner and cornered off the left side of the doorway. We started to prepare for a deck up there as well. The digging for the rest of the park has begun as well. Through fundraisers and just from skaters' own pockets, the amount of work going into this place has been incredible. We've had access to mini excavators. The school is allowing us to keep tools and materials there. It's just progressing every day.

And now some of the parts I'm most excited about are coming. They have raised enough money through skateboard and snowboard events to start the project of tearing out that god awful asphalt and repaving the place. This is HUGE. I can't believe this place has gotten this far. All without town or state funding. It blows my mind that this is a 100% DIY project and I couldn't be happier to be a part of it.

One big issue that the park has had is drainage. When the bowl corner was built, there was an attempt at a drainage system in the middle. However, it did not take long for that system to fully clog and the drain became completely useless. Water would pool up in the bowl and every low part of the park. Of course this is nothing new for any park, but the guys heading this project are so committed to doing this as best they can, and are completely redoing the drainage system in this process.

To make the drain issues even worse, and to combine them with the asphalt issues; the pavement is so porous and the indentations so deep that you can't do anything with the sitting water. We have squeegees and brooms, which will do the trick in a lot of parks to at least spread it out and let the sun hit it; but to no avail here. The pavement has been rotted away so much by weather over the years the squeegee does almost nothing. You can spend hours trying to move water but you really only move about 10% of it at a time as the rest flows back into the low spots via gravity. With the clogging of the drain, it rendered parts of the park completely unskateable for long periods of time. So, when I heard about the re-surfacing and the replacement of the drainage system, I couldn't have been happier.

Last year we put in another drain near the doorway. The tribute to a young homie inside the doorway is beautiful. Every time I go there are different candles, trinkets and presents left behind for Anthony. There is talk of plans to make it possible to skate through the door into a sketchy little section in the small area behind as well.

I'm sure you can notice some of the plans from the way the guys have begun to grade the land. The doorway we filled in to the left hand side will continue to the right as well. With more bowl corners and even an upper section. The plans are ever changing but with the access to the excavator things have started to really take form. We're doing the next build as soon as the weather allows.

For now, we'll just have to deal with the small section left un-fenced off. There's not much to it, but there's still at least a few features on top of the horrible pavement. A friend of mine took home my favorite feature for the winter and I'm eagerly awaiting for him to bring it back. Hopefully the winter didn't fuck up his plywood too much.

Thanks for reading. Stay skating and stay being you. All love to the HIVE!

P.S. payout for this post will be matched in USD from my pocket to go towards the park. As I'm sure all of us skaters now, every little bit helps, no matter how small. This park was built off micro-donations.