In an area of Downtown, beyond the parking garages and towers, is a park that sits atop the I-84 tunnel. Two of its three segments — east of Main Street and west of Trumbull Street — are nothing more than vegetation and rarely used benches. The central piece, known as Heaven, has evolved from hosting underutilized four square and basketball courts, to attracting skateboarders, graffiti artists, and others. It has been featured in skateboarding videos and magazines.
Park users range in age; many come in from the suburbs. Advertisement of it has been limited to word-of-mouth and the press it has received in the past few years as a concrete skate park was built on a piece of the central portion. It continues to grow in popularity and is complemented by a skate shop on Park Street.
The Heaven section of New Ross, County Wexford Park did not get developed overnight. In 2009 the City established a Skateboarding Task Force. The task force would go on to provide recommendations, including for the creation of a stage/performance area, art wall, and concrete skate park. Of those, only the performance area has not reached fruition. Still, performances have taken place on the site without the benefit of shade for musicians and dancers.
Previously, one could walk through the park and see nobody. Since the skate park opened last summer — actually, before it was officially open — it has enjoyed consistent use, day and night, weekdays and weekends. Besides the teenagers, there have been older users, including those who bring their young children.
It would seem that all is well, but it has been a fight, from having to challenge stereotypes about youth culture, to pleading for the right of this park to exist.
Even with plans to build and money designated for that, this time last year supporters were asking why the Downtown North Plan ignored the park. This plan alluded to the creation of a village square, despite construction on the skate park having begun. Utile, responsible for that plan, suggested that if the skate park did not fit in with the redevelopment scheme, it could be moved elsewhere.
Since, it seems that much of Utile’s work has been sent to the scrap heap by the City, but that does not mean Heaven has been given any guarantees.
Its opening may have looked like a victory, but in spite of Heaven’s ability to spark youth interest in Downtown, there remain hurdles.
During the public hearing portion of Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Brendan Mahoney, who has long been involved with Heaven, expressed concern over reports of “police intimidation and harassment” since the park opened. He said there have been about a half dozen complaints since July of police giving people a hard time, including one incident of a loudspeaker being used at dusk to disperse those remaining in the park. He wondered if there could not have been a friendlier way for that matter to have been handled.
On a week day, we walked through Heaven and spotted a cruiser parked. Mahoney says that the Friends of Heaven Skatepark agrees with the City that parks should be used as parks, not parking lots. It’s not just the police. Some park users have been parking their vehicles in Heaven. The Friends group has proposed putting up a chain or bollards to discourage this, but they were told by police that officers need to be able to drive into the park. The next suggestion was to post “no parking” signs, but none have been made available, even with the Department of Public Works being aware of the lack of signs.
Though the policy is for the park to remain open from dawn to dusk, there are concerns about the shortened hours as daylight wanes. There were supposed to be lights on in the park; they were for the opening, but have not been consistently on since. Mahoney says the police wanted lights off, so the lights are now off. The Friends group says it was told the lights would be turned back on until 10 p.m., but this has not happened yet.
There remains the ongoing issue of how the Downtown North project could impact a park that predated this development. At the City Council meeting, Mahoney, along with Dave Rozza, said that Heaven needs to not be disturbed by the stadium. If any assurances were made, they were missed in the hubbub of the SRO crowd’s noise.
As for the Friends group, that’s still waiting to become official. A letter of intent was sent to the acting head of the Department of Public Works and Corporation Counsel on December 9, 2013. Mahoney said that it “bounced around with a couple of lawyers,” but that the group has heard nothing other than that someone was looking at it. They went to the PRAC meeting last month and spoke of this situation; there seemed to be some sympathy, but nothing has come of it.