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QuoteOn a Thursday afternoon in autumn, there are close to a dozen skateboarders and BMX riders weaving around Paine's Park obstacles and each other. Josh Dubin, the executive director of Franklin's Paine Skatepark Fund, explains that if school weren't in session, there would be more. The Philadelphia skatepark, now open for more than a year, is the pride and joy of Dubin's skateboarding advocacy non-profit, which works to establish new parks in the City of Brotherly Love. Runners following the adjacent Schuylkill River Trail pass by. A mother pushing a stroller cuts through a grassy inlet. "It's like a park," says Billy Mahoney, 20, who skates at Paine's Park a couple of times a week, on the different kinds of visitors he sees.
Critics have praised Paine's Park, a space that very easily could have been a large cement bowl, for accommodating multifaceted use. At one glance, it looks very much like a plaza. From slightly higher ground, its amphitheater design is more apparent. The tiered ledges curve in the direction of an elevated stage. Complex named Paine's Park in its list of world's most innovative skate parks.
Full article: http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/skateboard-urbanism-draft