News |
Burnside skatepark was built by local Portland skaters that were fed up with rain, crappy terrain and a non-supportive community. We got involved in trying to get a park built, legally, but every time neighborhoods petitioned against our proposals and won.
Our first renegade effort was started by Dan Feldman and I, under an overpass in NW Portland. The wood and metal structures were easy to tear down, as demonstrated by some fellows at the neighboring business, Freightliner Trucking. After building it the third time, they started calling the cops and that was the end of that.
That inspired the second renegade project, a vert ramp with a capsule on one end. Mark "red" Scott got that one going, on a vacant lot in NW Portland. It lasted a couple weeks, until the neighboring business realized that they owned the lot we had built on. Red and his dad dismantled that project with a chainsaw and hauled it home where pieces were added on to the Redneck Ramp.
Burnside was lucky number three. In the summer of '91 Red got me a job mixing crete for a building contractor, were I learned how easy it was to work with concrete. Me, Red and Chuck Willis lived together in a house in NE Portland. I bought some concrete from Kent Dahlgren and Red, who both worked at Parr Lumber on NE MLK BLVD. My initial plan was to build something in the yard of out rented house, but the landlord wasn't real fond of the idea. That's when I got the idea to build under the bridge. It was dry, to some extent, it was secluded and there was already a slanted wall to build up to. There were always a bunch of guys hanging out drinking at our place. I remember a few drunken nights, running my idea by the crew. For the most part everyone just thought I was a drunken idiot, but Chuck and Osage Buffalo seemed genuinely interested in the idea.
On Haloween night, while trying to figure out what party to go to, me Chuck and Osage decided to bag the party and start "The Burnside Project." We grabbed the crete, a plastic five gallon bucket, a wheelbarrow, some shovels and loaded up the truck.
Once we got there we started grabbing rock and dirt from across the street and made a little bank. Osage went and found a water spigot and brought water back in the bucket. I mixed the crete in the wheelbarrow and spread it on the bank with one of the shovels.
http://www.burnsideskatepark.com/history/history.htm
The story of the success story of Portland Oregon skate park scene.