Finishing Touches To Be Put On New Skate Park Near The Schuylkill River Trail
By John McDevitt
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A unique outdoor public space near the Philadelphia Museum of Art incorporates a skateboard park, green space and a concert stage into its design.
The park is scheduled to open later this month.
Josh Nims' wheels started turning about 10 years ago when skateboarders were banned from Love Park because of granite was being rough up by the boards.
He founded Franklin's Paine Skateboard Fund and raised 4.5 million dollars to make the plaza so it can be used by skateboarders and others.
"We did two really interesting things here. One, we used brick stamping to recreate the feel of a public plaza that's got some bricks in it, which is something within skateboarding really feels great and is a lot of fun. But the other thing we did is we reused granite from both Love Park's pre-2004 re-design as well as granite from Dilworth Plaza as it is being redesigned right now," Nims said.
The 2½-acre site is nestled between Eakins Oval and the Schuylkill River Trail.
It's scheduled to open on May 23rd.
