Skaters bid farewell to iconic Center City hang-out [photos]
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This weekend skaters came en masse to LOVE Park for 'one more spin' after a ban was lifted before demolition starts after President’s Day. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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On Saturday light flurries coated the granite, making it harder for skaters to ride their boards. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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The willingness to come out in wind and snow shows the skaters’ dedication, said James Sinclair. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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Scott Mantua of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania performs tricks on a ledge around the fountain base as he tries to keep on riding throughout the snow. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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A trash can is turned into a fire pit to help warm the skaters. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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Boards rest on one of the pink planters as skaters warm by a fire pit. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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“It was cold, but not this cold. Or maybe because I was younger, I did not feel the cold,” said Vernon ‘Vern’ Laird remembering the first day he skated at Love Park in 1988. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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Ryan Gee hauls a sizable piece of red granite to the trunk of his car. He wants to bring it home as a keepsake. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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Cinematographer Phil Gushue documents the last days of the skaters at LOVE Park with a professional 16-mm film camera. The footage will be spliced with original content from the past, he explains. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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A new recruit of young skaters is pushed by $5,000 in prize money to perform these tricks for a social media contest underwritten by pro-skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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A new recruit of young skaters is pushed by $5,000 in prize money to perform these tricks for a social media contest underwritten by pro-skaters Steve Berra and Eric Koston. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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A skater is seen sizing-up the ‘LOVE Park gap’, as he prepares to attempt a jump into the fountain base. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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Skaters, bundled up against the cold are seen taking a break. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
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Russell Palermo, Vernon ‘Vern’ Liard, Jim Franchetti, and Scott Pesiradis stand in front of Robert Indiana’s Love Statue. (Bastiaan Slabbers/for NewsWorks)
A city-imposed ban prevented at least three generations from skating – legally – at LOVE Park. Last week, this ban was lifted to create an opportunity to “come back for one more spin” till construction commences following President’s Day.
That it was illegal from 1995 on didn’t stop – well eh, all – of the skaters who reunited with old friends to remember ‘those days’ at JFK Plaza this weekend.
“It was cold, but not this cold. Or maybe because I was younger, I did not feel the cold,” said Vernon ‘Vern’ Laird. The first day he ever skated at LOVE Park was December 26, 1988, during his high school Christmas winter break. He was a freshman.
The moment he learned the ban was going to be lifted he instantly booked a flight from Los Angeles, California, where he now lives, to be with his old skater-friends (some of whom now own local skate shops).
The willingness to come out in wind and snow shows the skaters’ dedication, says James Sinclair. He is one of the skaters trying to keep riding his board despite freezing temperatures and the few flurries that fell on Saturday. He remembers pink planters and trashcans being installed, a decade ago, in an attempt to keep riders out, though skaters tried to sneak in and ride a little bit here and there.
On Saturday, Russell Palermo, now 44, describes scenes in the late eighties. ”Sometimes they were there, sometimes they were not. Depending on the crowd size,” he recalls how Philadelphia Police handled the situation in those days. He now advocates skating by exposing it to his own kids, telling them ‘Go out there and have fun’.
On the east side near North 15th Street, Ryan Gee, 41, hauls a sizable piece of red granite to the trunk of his car. He wants to bring it home as a keepsake. In the nineties Gee documented the scene as he filmed and photographed his skater-friends for ads and magazines. It was good money, he shares.
“The way the park was layed-out, it’s… perfect. It is like more than perfect. The ledges are good to do tricks on, the ground is smooth granite. All the variations, gaps to jump. There is no other place that can replace this,” Gee explains.
Last week at the groundbreaking ceremony for the new LOVE Park Jesse Rendell, Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund Board member and son of former Gov. Ed Rendell stated that LOVE Park’s granite will be donated to the fund after the demolition where it will hopefully be used to help develop other skate parks in the city.
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