Skate park for Woodhaven

From DNA Info:

The Parks Department has put out a request for bids to build a massive new skate park in Woodhaven.

The 10,350 square-foot skate park — the sixth city-run facility in Queens — will part of a larger renovation at London Planetree Park, on Atlantic Avenue between 88th and 89th streets.

The skate park, located in what is now a basketball and baseball playground, will feature two stair sections, grind rails, a brick quarter pipe and a series of banks and slopes.

The renovations for Planetree, which will cost $1.72 million, will also include two new basketball courts to the south of the skate park, along with adult fitness equipment, a walking path, shrubs and a sitting area.

The project is expected to be completed in fall 2013.

Skate park opens in Flushing Meadows

From NY1:

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and professional skateboarders attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday at Flushing Meadows Corona Park's new skate park.

The park was opened as part of the "Adopt-a-Park" program, where small businesses, community groups and individuals provide funds to refurbish city parks.

The $1.1 million for the park, which is located at the old Astral Fountain from the World's Fair, came from the Maloof Brothers, who own the Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

"We decided let's take advantage of it, build a beautiful park for the kids, and donate it to the kids,” said Joe Maloof of Maloof Companies.

"We brought them around, showed them some locations, and they just fell in love with this spot at the fountain at the site of the state pavilion and the unisphere,” said Queens Borough Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski. “It's a beautiful spot in Flushing Meadow."

Skaters are giving the park rave reviews.

Note: If you live in an area of Queens without waterfront towers, you are forced to rely on the generosity of strangers. Elsewhere in this City, taxpayers actually foot the bill for park construction...

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.