Many would agree that public artist, Nancy Schon has already made her mark on the City of Boston. Her Make Way for Ducklings in the Public Garden and more recently, her Tortoise and the Hare in Copley Square attract and enchant locals and visitors of all ages. However, for Schon, a lifelong Newton resident, her real gift to Boston won’t come for another few years. Another sculpture? No. This time around, Schon looks forward to offering Boston and its guests a very different form of public art: a skateboard park.

What prompted this internationally known sculptor and grandmother of 11 to champion a skateboard park? Schon says that her passion for this project—the Charles River Skateboard park, a 40,000 sq. ft. park under the Zakim Bridge—began with her love of sports. "I have been an athlete all my life. I play tennis daily and I swim and walk. I’ve lived in Newton all my life and I have never missed a marathon. Several years ago I decided that I wanted to create a piece of art to celebrate the marathon. I thought about it and then had what I believe was a perfect idea: The Tortoise and the Hare. After all, had I done a male runner or a female runner, a white person or a black, someone using a wheelchair or not, I would have offended someone or left someone out. The Greek tale of the Tortoise and the Hare seemed to me to be an ideal way to celebrate the marathon, which of course, originated in Greece."

Conceiving of the Tortoise and the Hare was one thing; bringing the piece to Copley Square was quite another. "At first I wanted it to be in Hopkinton, at the start of the race, but for many reasons, that did not come to fruition. Then I focused on Copley Square and had to go though a variety of city government challenges. When I wasn’t navigating my way through the bureaucracy, I was in my studio sculpting the piece. When it was completed, there were two 400 pound sculptures in need of a home. While they were loose, they made guest appearances at the Kennedy Center in Washington and at Symphony Hall in Boston. Ultimately they made their way to their permanent home in Copley Square."

The Tortoise and the Hare were welcomed to Copley Square and for a short time, Schon was delighted that this project had reached fruition. Then she received an upsetting phone call. It seemed that skateboarders were using the tortoise and the hare for their skateboarding maneuvers. Incensed that “hoodlums” would treat public are so abusively, Schon went into Boston to take them on. What she found was not what she expected.

"Terrific Kids Engaged in a Wonderful Sport"

Although she approached the skateboarders as an artists, Schone soon discovered that it was the athlete in her that became engaged in conversation. To her great surprise, the skateboarders, who wore baggy cloths (so they could move freely in their sport, she soon learned) and who sometimes sported wild hair, tattoos and piercing, were "terrific kids." "Instead of finding the negative stereotypes I had imagined, I met really nice kids who were serious and dedicated athletes. They explained to me that they had no interest in damaging my sculptures. They gravitated to the tortoise and the hare because the sculptures provided them with new and interesting space and angles on them which they could practice their "ollies," which is their primary move. I was stunned to learn that skateboarding is against the law in Boston, Cambridge and most cities and that most of these kids had been find for skateboarding, if not carted off by the police."

Schon, the athlete, was incensed. "Imagine a sport that is against the law. This made me crazy." She went on to say that her anger intensified as she came to appreciate that many attributes of skateboarding. "it's a sport that kids of any age can do and because the equipment is so inexpensive, no socioeconomic group gets excluded. As a result, it’s a great uniter. I met rich kids, poor kids and everything in between. They came from all ethnic and religious groups. I saw them work together, help each other and I saw the older ones mentor the younger ones. What all these kids had in common is that they were too focused on their sport and on being good athletes to be turning to drugs, alcohol or cigarettes." Schon adds that another misconception about skateboarding is that it is a dangerous sport. It has far fewer injuries than most sports, according to Schon who explains, "the kids do what they can at their level—for the most part, they are not trying moves that are beyond their abilities."

Lest anyone think that all skateboarders are kids, Nancy Schon corrects this misconception as well. Although she herself had not tried it, she notes that this is a sport that has attracted many women, as well as a respectable number of middle aged men. Schon is most fascinated by the "skateboard moms." No, these are not mini-van driving women who cart their children around to skateboard games. The women themselves are the skateboarders, a large and devoted network of moms in their 20's, 30's and 40's all over the United States. (See the June edition of Newton Magazine's story on the Reverend Richard Malmberg, pastor of Newton’s Second Church a United Christ church, who is also an enthusiastic skateboarder.)

Sculptor Turns Activist and Fundraiser

Angered that there is a "fabulous sport" whose participants have no place to practice and that this injustice was sending athletes to her Copley Square sculpture, Schon began to look for a way to fund and build a real skateboard park. Beginning in the mid 1990's, she began going to city meetings. Some were encouraging but most of the time, Schon found herself frustrated and defeated. Things changed in 2003 when she met another Newton resident, Renata von Tscharner, and learned that there were others determined to bring a world class skatepark to Boston. Even better von Tscharner and the group she founded in 2000, the Charles River Conservancy, had a spectacular location in mind: it is one acre under one of the ramps of the Zakim Bridge. "Renata and her students at the Radcliffe Seminars Landscape Program had designed a skatepark to go under the Zakim Bridge. This is a perfect spot, not only for its size and natural beauty, but it has several other features that make it ideal for a skateboard park. There is lots of noise around, which skateboarders love, it is near four MBTA stations and it is situated in a perfect spot for tourists and spectators."

Since 2003, Nancy Schon has worked tirelessly to raise money for the skateboard park, which despite her statue in the community and her enthusiasm, has not been an easy sell. "People still have bias' against skateboarding. They don’t see that it is a great sport that will one day be in the Olympics. Instead they still regard it as something that trashes city space." Fortunately, Schon says, she is not new to fundraising. She has had to raise money for many of her projects. That said, it was easier to have people sponsor a duck for Make Way for Ducklings than to inspire them to write big checks for the Charles River Skateboard Park. To date Schon and others have raised $2.3 million needed to bring the park to completion. Among her many fundraising efforts was a party in her West Newton hill neighborhood that yielded $6,000 for the park.

Creating a Jewel in the Emerald Necklace

While Fundraising for the park has often felt more like the Tortoise than the hare, planning the park has moved along at an even and steady pace. The CRC (Charles River Conservancy) is committed to a public design process and wanted the park to be well received by the athletes as well as visitors. To this end they enlisted the advice and guidance of the skateboarders, including Noah Stockman, a skateboarder who had construction and project management experience. Stockman established and cultivated relationships with area skateboarders and with skateboard shops owners, who, with the help of grants from the Tony hawk and The Boston Foundations, were invited to participate in planning meetings. In the summer of 2003, the CRC hosted its first youth design meeting at the Boston Public Library. Young skateboarders and professional skaters came and communicated their suggestions and requests for park design.

In 2003, the CRC hired Zach Wormhoudt, the designer of several well regarded skateboard parks throughout the U.S. including the most well known park, Extreme park in Louisville, Ky. Wormhoudt, a skateboarder and his firm, Wormhoudt, Inc., began working with the CRC to address the size and complexity of the Charles River project. Since many skateboard parks are smaller and in warmer climates and certainly don’t involve working with the behemoth Big Dig, the designers faced some unfamiliar challenges. They needed to coordinate work closely with engineers, geologists and landscape architects as well as with the local skaters all of whom agreed that about the need to maintain a sense of ownership. In all, over 400 local skateboarders, BMX bikers (who will also use the park) and inline skaters have actively participated in meetings. They have included local teenagers as well as professional skaters. Jamie Cummings a well known skater in the Boston area, has been a key player in the design of the park.