Skateboard Park

The conflict over building a skateboard area in Glendale's Montrose Park seems to spring from long-held stereotypes and assumptions about kids who skate ("Hot Wheels," Sept. 26). Many of the residents opposing the skate area that you quoted were afraid of skaters zooming by and forcing them off the sidewalk. This is the very kind of event that a skate park will reduce. Skaters won't be ripping up and down sidewalks if presented with a more enjoyable skating location. Noise from a skate park is a legitimate concern--but will a skate park really be noisier than a basketball court or a swing set full of excited kids?

Brazilian skateboarder Pedro Barros injured his knee Friday during a practice run for the Skateboard Park event. He still managed to pull off the best run in the finals a day later to narrowly beat Ben Hatchell to take the X Games gold medal. In the finals, Hatchell had the higher score heading into the last run. He converted an impressive string of moves, including a front side inverted 540, a 360 over the main gap of the course and a fakie ollie into a nosegrind. But the explosiveness and air Barros showed on his final run impressed the judges even more.

The public is invited to express its preferences on two different matters in a city-sponsored barbecue Saturday at the Watts Towers. The pleasant and easy one is: hot dog or hamburger? The thorny and contentious one - an issue simmering since 2009 - is whether it's a good idea to plant a state-of-the-art skateboard plaza in the shadow of the Watt Towers, a national historic landmark that's one of the most revered and symbolic public artworks on the West Coast, if not the nation.

"Downton Abbey,"the royal wedding, more "Downton Abbey," the Silver Jubilee, the wind-up to the Summer Olympics - American popular culture hasn't been so Anglophilic since the halcyon days of Merchant Ivory and Emma Thompson's Oscar noms. It's gotten a bit sickening, really, all those plummy vowels and absurd hats, with the dandelion-haired mayor of London, Boris Johnson, showing up on Letterman to pitch his new book and Kate Middleton fever. Fortunately, no one skewers the British quite like the British, and if ping-pong did not in fact originate on the table tops of Britain (as Mayor Johnson in one of his wackier pre-Olympic moments suggested)

Sighting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness--which in this case is the freedom to skateboard--a group of youths has formally complained to Hermosa Beach city officials that there is not enough space in the city for land surfers. At last week's City Council meeting, a group of about 10 skateboarders challenged officials to build a skateboard park. The youths said the city built a park for roller hockey and they want a park of their own.

After more than a year of searching for a site where they can legally perform their acrobatic stunts, Hermosa Beach skateboarders are poised to get one of the first publicly funded skateboard parks in Los Angeles County. The Hermosa Beach City Council has unanimously approved a plan to spend more than $240,000 to create a 7,000-square-foot skateboard park on a back lot at the city's Community Center within the next year.

The city could become only the second in Orange County to build a skateboard park if the City Council tonight approves a proposal to hire a consultant to draw up blueprints for the facility. The 5,000-square-foot park would be at Chapparosa Park. The exact location would be chosen after the council allocates the $150,000 required for the project, which would be completed by April. Only Huntington Beach has such a facility, though several other cities are discussing adding skateboard parks.

Santa Cruz native Raven Tershy only finished two runs in the skateboard park finals, but those two runs were all he needed to win his first X Games gold medal. Tershy's total of 82 points edged the 81 of defending gold medalist Pedro Barros. "He deserved it," Barros said. "He skated the whole contest amazing ? It was a really good feeling to see my friend out there, killing it out there. " Barros opened the finals with two runs of 40 and 41, respectively, to take what appeared to be a commanding and decisive lead.

A proposal to build a skateboard facility at Chapparosa Park was unexpectedly scuttled by the City Council this week, drawing cheers from dozens of neighbors gathered to oppose the project. City officials said they will try instead to build the skateboard park on a 21,000-square-foot section of federal land across from the Chet Holifield Federal Building--and far from any homes.

The Calabasas City Council voted Wednesday to proceed with plans to build a skateboard park. The council voted 3 to 2 on the plan to build a 10,000-square-foot park at the corner of Las Virgenes Road and Lost Hills Road. The two council members who voted against the plan said the area had too much traffic to be safe. Added Councilman Dennis Washburn, "There are some of us, frankly, who might like to use that skateboard site."

The public is invited to express its preferences on two different matters in a city-sponsored barbecue Saturday at the Watts Towers. The pleasant and easy one is: hot dog or hamburger? The thorny and contentious one - an issue simmering since 2009 - is whether it's a good idea to plant a state-of-the-art skateboard plaza in the shadow of the Watt Towers, a national historic landmark that's one of the most revered and symbolic public artworks on the West Coast, if not the nation.

Santa Cruz native Raven Tershy only finished two runs in the skateboard park finals, but those two runs were all he needed to win his first X Games gold medal. Tershy's total of 82 points edged the 81 of defending gold medalist Pedro Barros. "He deserved it," Barros said. "He skated the whole contest amazing ? It was a really good feeling to see my friend out there, killing it out there. " Barros opened the finals with two runs of 40 and 41, respectively, to take what appeared to be a commanding and decisive lead.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn's plan to build a skateboard park in the shadow of the Watts Towers is being ramrodded through without full consideration of the potential impact on the fragile national historic landmark or proper consultation with its owner, the state of California, the top state parks official in Los Angeles said Monday. Hahn, who faces voters Tuesday in a runoff election for Congress, has proposed a skate park as a vitally needed recreational outlet for Watts youth.

Walter Molo wouldn't go. "Go, Molo, go!" his friends yelled. The once-avid motorcycle rider is not one to shy from adventure. But to dive 4 feet down a steep concrete embankment — in a wheelchair, while paralyzed from the waist down? "Yeah," Molo said, gripping his wheels a few feet from the edge. "I'm gonna have to take a moment to think this one over. " A skateboarding park on Venice Beach transformed into a training ground Saturday morning as several dozen paraplegics and quadriplegics learned to drop, roll and dive on curved walls as tall as school buses.

8:48 p.m. — It's called speed and style, but the speed hardly mattered — excepted when it counted most. In the last event of the 2010 X Games, motocross riders combined two disciplines, racing and tricks, to put on a show at Staples Center. In the gold medal race, Nate Adams scored 89.33 style points, beating out Travis Pastrana's 88.00. But Pastrana finished 5.97 seconds ahead of Adams in the race, giving him a total score of 93.97 and the gold medal in the moto X speed & style event.

When: Through Sunday. Where: Downtown L.A. SATURDAY At Event Deck at LA Live: 11 a.m., BMX freestyle park final; 1:30 p.m., skateboard street men's final; 3:30 p.m., hometown heroes street final. At Coliseum: 4 p.m., rally car racing elimination/final; 6 p.m., BMX freestyle big air final; 7:15 p.m., rally car super rally final; 8:15 p.m., skateboard big air rail jam. SUNDAY At Event Deck at LA Live: 10:45 a.m., BMX freestyle street final; noon, skateboard park adaptive jam; 12:30 p.m., women's skateboard street final; 1:45 p.m., skateboard park legends final; 3 p.m., skateboard women's park jam; 4 p.m., skateboard game of SK8 final; 5:30 p.m., skateboard park final.

X Games 16 When: Thursday through Sunday. Where: Coliseum, Staples Center, Nokia Theater, Event Deck at L.A. Live. Who: World's top action sports athletes competing in BMX, moto X, skateboard and rally car events. TV: ESPN, ESPN 2. Tickets: Available via Ticketmaster, prices beginning at $9. Ticketmaster's X Games website is http://www.ticketmaster.com/ESPN-X-Games-tickets/artist/976171 For more information: http://espn.

Should a Tony Hawk-endorsed skateboard park be a neighbor to South Los Angeles' cultural landmark, the Watts Towers? In what could become a battle between athletics and aesthetics, the answer will be up to city officials, who figure to get an earful from advocates for the arts and backers of youth recreation, debating an immediate benefit for youngsters and a longer-range dream of a cultural district, anchored by the towers. FOR THE RECORD: Skateboard park proposal: An article in Wednesday's Calendar section about a proposal to build a skateboard park near the Watts Towers said that Wasserman Media Group was backing the proposal.