Sunday, April 4, 2010

Skate park to replace World's Fair fountain

From the Times Ledger:

Flushing Meadows Corona Park will soon be home to a new skate park that blends together distinctive urban elements from locations throughout the city, officials said.

The 16,000-square-foot facility will be built atop the derelict Astral Fountain left over from the 1964 World’s Fair with money provided by the Maloof Money Cup, a skateboarding competition organized by the California family that owns the Sacramento Kings professional basketball team.

Construction was slated to begin this month. The skateboarding competition starts June 5 with a $100,000 prize for the winner. The completed skate park will replicate rails and stairs from locations like Union Square, Police Plaza, a now-closed curved concrete space under the Brooklyn Bridge and even the ledge and curvature of the Unisphere fountain pool.

The project has already gotten the go-ahead from Community Board 4 and the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Conservancy.

Not everyone was overjoyed with the plan, however. Greg Godfrey, president of the Flushing Meadows Corona Park World’s Fair Association, attacked the plan for destroying a piece of history.

All that remains of the Astral Fountain, which once included a towering, lattice-like cage around its water plumes, is a ring of nozzles in the middle of the concrete foundation. The last listed Parks Department inspection, in December 2009, found all elements of the structure were acceptable except for its paved surfaces.

14 comments:

Joe said...

16,000-square-feet ?
That would put it over the NYS Pavilion. That fountain basin and water manifold is hardly 30 feet wide.
Must mean 1600

Don Diego said...

Pandering again to special interests.

Yep...keep those loud Latinos contained so they don't venture further into the park with cervezas concealed in paper bags...whistling or making sucking sounds at the passing girls..."Chichas".

And that's what the soccer fields are for too....containment purposes.

Anonymous said...

Can we hope that the sponsor to build this vandalism magnet has created an annuity that will fund its maintenance in perpetuity? Because if it doesn't look like crap from its opening day, it will look like crap in six months or less.

LibertyBoyNYC said...

This is great, I'm looking for a new spot to tag up with graffiti I mean urban youth art.

Anonymous said...

WTF!!!
Is nothing safe?
So mad, can't think straight..

Anonymous said...

Back door sneak it in while getting rid of part of history - no hearing no nothing.

Gaspar said...

The Mayor is a great peron.
You people are just a bunch of Racists! Why don't you all hurry up and die already.
Latino's are the new Amereca get over it or move back across the Atlantic.
Latinos will soon drink cerveza dancing on your graves.

Anonymous said...

Bloomtard has no respect for this city and yet he changed the law so he and his friends could continue to pillage our town. IMPEACH THE BASTARD!!!

Anonymous said...

"The Mayor is a great peron."

I agree, he is similar to Argentine dictator, Juan Peron. Good call.

georgetheatheist said...

Latinos dance on each others graves. My Cuban neighbor across the street can't stand the Columbians that bought the house next door to him.

Anonymous said...

90% of Cuban's are Spaniards !
All the ones I know a civilized not even close to these jungle scalawags & free loaders.

me said...

Lol.. sigh..

"Latinos dance on each others graves. My Cuban neighbor across the street can't stand the Columbians that bought the house next door to him."

You mean ColOmbians...

"90% of Cuban's are Spaniards !
All the ones I know a civilized not even close to these jungle scalawags & free loaders."

So if 90% of Cuban's are Spaniards... how can they be Cubans, lol ;) hmmmm?

Anonymous said...

Latinos dance on each others graves. My Cuban neighbor across the street can't stand the Columbians that bought the house next door to him.

----------------------------------

And Dominicans can't stand Haitians.

Latinos are no different from us... we're all racist scumbags!

Sergey Kadinsky said...

Racial comments aside, why not put the skateboarding park inside a restored NYS Pavilion? Oh, that's right, our elected leaders would prefer to see it rust and crumble.