New Project. Sycamore Maintenance Day 1.

So, as we have mentioned before, there is a lot of overgrowth area in this lot. There's a beautiful Sycamore in the lot that is suffering from root 'suckers' that have been neglected for what looks like years. Some of the suckers are up to 7" in diameter.

We started to clear out the area yesterday with some hand pruners. We'll come back tomorrow in the 20 degree weather to finish up.

Making a small dent...

Feature in Kansas City Star

Another bit of press for our project, this time in the Kansas City Star.

Pop-up skate park raises concern near City Market

Throwback Thursday

Back before anything was close to being built we were just skating in a street in our neighborhood. Sometime 2012-13 winter.

And today:

P.S. I think we'll be staying for a while.

Road is currently closed so the neighborhood can play.

This morning Public Works came and installed these baracades into the street to prohibit vehicular traffic. We were worried about this project annoying the neighborhood, but on a positive note, our neighborhood is always looking for solutions to reduce through traffic. While these barriers remain up this section of street provides a car-free environment for walker, skaters, cyclists, etc. Bring on the bike lanes!

Project write up on Urban Angle

Kansas City urban issue blog Urban Angle did a write up on our project, the reaction of the city, and the history of this area. Pretty interesting read, especially for the history of this property and neighborhood.

Currently...

Currently, the city has temporarily blocked off the entire section of road where the project is. They will have a 'community discussion' on Tuesday that we have heard about through the grapevine. We have not been invited to this 'community discussion'. 

Channel 41 news feature

KSHB did a short feature on our project Wednesday night after we found out the city had plans to tear it out. Link below.

http://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/do-it-yourself-skate-park-faces-possible-demolition

Happy Thursday!

Hopefully the city won't tear down our work tomorrow!

Currently...

KC Public Works came down today. They have a work order to remove the concrete ramps this week. We will keep you posted...

Build #3. Finishing up.

To finish off this thing we smoothed down the edges of the parking blocks and curbs and added a couple coats of paint.

The street is still rough and horrible though.

Build #3

We started working up the cul de sac with this small spined curb. This build took 16 bags of concrete and 12 hours of volunteer labor.

A little bonus.

Clean up and prep

This sidewalk has been completely overgrown and blocked for a while now. This first photo was taken after we had already cut out a lot of small trees that were blocking the way.

A more walkable sidewalk!

We pulled this barbed wire out of the dirt covering the sidewalk.

Snow Day!

Donation!

Neighbors keep dropping off wood scraps for us to use behind the barrier. These plywood scraps are going to be great to use for small forms.

Clean up day

This thing is too fun! This is the first day we tried out the whole barrier. The concrete on the newest section wasn't quite ready so we took it pretty easy. We swept a lot this day, gathered and removed scrap wood that had been accumulating behind the barrier while we were working, shoveling dirt out from behind the barrier, and painting curbs to skate and make the spot more noticeable.

The first white car in the photo below is a city codes worker pulling up to the spot because there was a complaint against skateboard ramps in the street. We assume it was the Housing Authority that made this complaint. She seemed a bit confused about what to do. She said that what was built wasn't even on the property they had said it was on and that 'there are no ordinances about skateboard ramps in Kansas City', so she said she wasn't going to do anything about it.

Wee!

Street clean up

This day we had a work day to clean up the cul de sac extending behind the barrier. This area has already been cleaned up a ton by us. The area directly behind the barrier was completely full of dirt that two volunteers dug out one night in the rain. The road was still way too dirty to skate or build on, so our goal was to continue the cleaning process, sweeping the street and digging out the curbs and sidewalks.

Here are a couple before and after shots from this day:

A photo from further back in the lot looking towards the street. Notice those clean curbs??

An area even further back into the lot that may some day be cleared out. There are usable walkways in this part of the neighborhood that are just not being maintained at all.

Build #1 Part 4

We're finishing the whole barrier! This time with a different design.

This build took 14 bags of donated quikcrete and about 24 volunteer hours on January 23rd, 2015.

Street needle

We find some seedy things in this street and lot in our neighborhood. Today there was a used needle in the street. The week before there was a porno mag in the street. Before that a dumped mattress behind the barrier. etc etc.

Donation!

A great neighbor of the spot donated 20 bags of quikcrete!(12 pictured) This would have cost us about $80 to have bought.

A friend's grandmother wanted to donate to the project and wrote a check for $100. That brings our monetary donations to $660.

Bread! KC

Our community built skate park project was presented at local micro-funding event series Bread! KC. The project seemed to generate a lot of excitement amongst attendees, but we fell short of winning the grant, which was $1,500 that night. We met lots of enthusiastic people who wanted to help us in some way.

Build #2 part 2

The manual pad was complete late December. We spent about $300 and 80 hours volunteer labor over 2 days.

Here's a faux before and after:

Build #2 Part 1

We had up to 10 volunteers during this long day. We started at 10am Saturday and finished at 3am Sunday. Ugh...

Built on December 20, 2014.

Donations!

Some scrap donations from a neighboring business that will be useful for framing. Another business gave us some scrap steel tubing we will use as coping for a long ledge over a manual pad.

A very generous friend of the spot made a $300 donation and another very generous neighbor made a $60 donation. That brings monetary donations to $560.

Inspiration

Brooklyn Street skate park in Portland is a nice little park that cleaned up an unused and abused corner of a residential neighborhood. The project cost $5000 and a lot of volunteer hours.

This is how it started:

This is the completed park:

Build #1 Part 3

About $90 in concrete. At this point, there have been $200 in monetary donations.

 On day 3 We extended the ramp to the left and spined it to the other side.

The build was done on November 29, 2014.