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By Mark Stosberg
The original skatepark.org provided critical support for hundreds of the skateparks we enjoy today.
In 1995, a 19 year old me (Mark Stosberg) tried and failed to get a legal place to skateboard at Earlham College. Despite that failure, I made a website from the helpful resources and links I collected during the process. I thought they might be helpful to get skateboarding legalized somewhere else.
The website, known then as "legalskate", grew slowly, but feedback indicated it was helping in other communities. I searched the web for new resources to add, and in 1998 I came across Justin Simoni's website, an effort to get a skatepark in Wethersfield, Connecticut. An enterprising high school student, Justin was adding resources to his own website to help others, like I was. And like mine, Justin's effort to get a skatepark in his own town was stalled.
I invited Justin to join forces on a better skatepark website. Justin was hesitent about working with a stranger on the internet, but he agreed. He soon gave the website a much needed graphic design overhaul.
In 1999, the website went through a major transformation from a collection of files to a database-driven website using software I wrote myself. This software allowed users to submit and and update entries themselves, making maintenance easier. This allowed the website to grow much faster. Soon after, the ability to rate and comment on resources was added.
As time passed, it was clear that skateboarding was rarely ever legalized, and skateparks were the solution. The focus was changed to become "Skatepark.org". The site grew to contain over 1,000 resources from nearly all 50 US states and almost 40 countries. I maintained the website with the help of many contributors in the same format until 2007, over a decade after the project begin.
Although Justin and my hometown skatepark efforts were abandoned by then, the skatepark movement which was fueled in part by Skatepark.org eventually caught on. Since Skatepark.org started, our hometowns in Frankfort, Kentucky and Wethersfield, Connecticut now have skateparks, as well as the cities we moved to: Richmond, Indiana and Denver, Colorado.
I was invited to give a short speech at the grand opening for the Richmond, Indiana skatepark in 2002 and prepared this short speech, showcasing how the efforts of all kinds of people, young and old, make skateparks happen.
In 2008, the control of the skatepark.org domain was passed to Skaters for Public Skateparks, a new organization formed with the same goals in mind, and fresh energy to work on the issue.
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