Please join us at noon this Saturday at Heaven (New Ross, County Wexford Park) in downtown Hartford for the ribbon cutting ceremony and opening celebration of the City's first skatepark. After five years of effort by members of the skateboard, BMX and hip hop community, the park is reopening again in its entirety with a world-class poured concrete skatepark for Hartfordites and others to enjoy. Starting Saturday, the skatepark will be open dawn to dusk everyday.
The history of the park with respect to skateboarding goes back nearly 20 years; as many know it was featured in several seminal 90s skate videos and established Hartford as the secret skate mecca of the Northeast.
The program will be begin with remarks from the Friends of Heaven Skatepark, local elected officials and others involved in the creation of this park. Please stay afterwards for demos, live music, graffiti, break-dancing and to use the park (or spectate). As you may know, Saturday is also Riverfest, so stay even longer for fireworks.
In the event of inclement weather, the rain date is Sunday with the same schedule.
The Hartford Court of Common Council created the Hartford Skateboard Task Force in 2009 with the purpose of advising the City on the potential location, design and construction of a skatepark. Comprised of representatives of the skating, BMX, business, government and park communities, the Task Force fulfilled those goals and undertook fundraising and grant writing measures to ensure that the park would be built. The design for the park was created with strong community input and a devised process via a series of public meetings. Pulling together a United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Grant through the City of Hartford, a Tony Hawk Foundation Grant (first one in CT, making CT the final state in the country to get one) and individual donors, the park was able to secure funding and grow from a dream into reality. Through a competitive bidding process, the design/build team of Stantec and Who Skates was selected, designing and constructing the skatepark in 2013-2014.
More information about the Friends group and the history of the project and the space is available at www.heaveninhartford.org.