Having had a 35 year love affair with all things skateboarding, I was stoked beyond belief to recently have the opportunity to leave the U.K shores to go on a tour of the American northwest with a production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night . The production was to tour for 9 weeks and included the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Chicago.
Although I am passionate about my work as an actor and can’t deny I was excited at the prospect of playing Shakespeare in such great theaters, I couldn’t help but immediately think “I’m taking my skateboard!”
I was soon Googling skateparks in the cities I would be visiting and was very excited by what I saw. We have some great skateparks here in the U.K and I’m lucky enough to live a stone’s throw from some of the best. But to go stateside and witness firsthand what the home of skateboarding had to offer was quiet frankly a dream come true. The parks didn’t disappoint either!
From Boston’s Lynch Family Project with a bowl the scale of which I had never before witnessed to the final days of Love Park in Philadelphia and it’s new Paine’s Plaza skatepark with views of the Schuykill river and plug sockets for phones and speakers (a luxury we have yet to acquire in the U.K!)
Other parks included the Durham skate plaza in Durham, N.C, the Chelsea pier skatepark in NYC!(a personal favorite), and last but not least the Grant park skate plaza in Chicago! I did what I set out to do and got my fill of U.S concrete.
What I was struck by most on all my visits to these parks was how friendly and welcoming everyone was. It’s like that here in the U.K (on the whole) and was very pleased to find it the same across the pond. The international skateboarding community is full of peace and love! Skaters are friendly and supportive; once again it was confirmed to me that I am doing the right thing by continuing my love affair with this coolest of sports
These photos capture that American Dream that caught my imagination all those years ago when I started skateboarding! God bless America! Hope to come back soon! By Fergus Odonnell Thankyou to Michael Brooke of Concrete Wave Magazine.