The remade Railyard Skate Park is a great addition to Outwater Memorial Park and the city of Lockport. The charitable foundations, public entities and individual supporters who made it a reality deserve this community’s sincere thanks.
Skaters didn’t wait for the “official” or ceremonial opening of the park this past Saturday to start enjoying it, and that’s OK. Fitting, even.
No, the ribbon cutting and formalities were all about recognizing the donors, without whom a $500,000 vision could not have been realized.
Start with The Skatepark Project, formerly known as the Tony Hawk Foundation, which in 2019 pledged a matching grant of up to $250,000 for a new skatepark. This was at once a big gift and a big challenge — for maximizing the grant meant raising just as much money from other sources — and while it took a couple of years, the nonprofit Lockport Community Services and grassroots Friends of Railyard Skatepark pulled it off.
Chipping in to create the maximum match were the Grigg Lewis Foundation, which takes such good care of youth in our community, the Niagara River Greenway, the Verizon Lockport Media Fund, the John R. Oishei fund, the City of Lockport, and individual donors whose smaller gifts carried equal weight in getting Lockport Community Services to the fundraising finish line.
Built where a wooden skate park existed previously, the new skate park was designed by Seattle-based Grindline and its CEO, Matt Fluegge. Features include stairs and railings, vertical ramps and other inclines. Because it’s made of concrete, in addition to being “Built to Play,” it was built to last, thus addressing a recurring concern about the old skate park.
A skate park isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but as recreation venues go it’s high on the list of nice things to have. There’s no charge to use it, its appeal is multi-generational, and as a rec outlet it adds to Lockport’s appeal as a place to call “home.”
Let the Railyard 2.0 stand as an example of what a community can do for itself, under the non-profit/charitable banner. It’s much more than what the public sector or private sector alone could have pulled off.