004: Urban Plazas

Skate Spot vs Skate Park

1. Take into consideration not just the obstacles that appear in popular skate videos but also consider the environments and context in which those obstacles are skated. Then try to incorporate some of those environmental factors when possible into skatepark design.

I mentioned before that street skaters skate a variety of non skater built environments that just so happen to better suit beginner and casual skating. In this article I’d like to examine one of those environments that is well known and generally held in high regard by skateboarders. I’m not saying that this spot should be copied exactly and that if it was that would be an amazing skatepark. That is not the case at all actually. What I am trying to show is that by carefully observing the environments in which skateboarding tricks, style and culture developed we can come up with design guidelines that would better suit the act and enjoyment of skateboarding.

75 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan is the address for the brick urban plaza between Water Street and Front Street. To skateboarders the plaza is known as Pyramid Ledges. In the book Privately Owned Public Space, the author Jerold S. Kayden lays out the design specifications for urban plazas such as Pyramid Ledges in New York City. Below are a few paragraphs of those specifications.

With sunlight in mind, orientation rules prohibit urban plazas that exclusively face north and encourage south facing ones. To assure spatial contiguity, shape rules require that all points within the major portion of the space, defined as an area with a minimum dimension of 40 feet, be visible from all other points within that major portion. Proportion rules encourage the creation of comfortably configured spaces by establishing a relationship between the length of street frontage and the depth of the space, with depth ranging from one- third to three times the frontage length. Special dimension rules apply to through-block plazas.

Urban plazas must be accessible to the public at all times unless a nighttime closing has been authorized by the city planning commission. To facilitate physical accessibility, the urban plaza generally must be at the same level as the public sidewalk for at least half of its frontage and a depth of 10 feet, and generally may not be more than three feet above or below street curb level. At least half its street frontage must be clear of obstructions to a depth of 20 feet, while the other half may only have obstructions, such as walls, rising to a maximum height of three feet. For disabled individuals, there must be at least one path of travel with a minimum width of five feet to the major portion of the urban plaza; and ramps provided alongside stairs or steps within such path must have a minimum width of three feet.

Recognizing that empty plazas lacking usable or aesthetically pleasing features have ill-served the public, the Zoning Resolution defines and requires “amenities” of seating and trees. At least one linear foot of seating for every 30 square feet of urban plaza is mandated; five percent of seating must have backs, and minimum depth and height criteria are announced. The flat top of walls and ledges bounding planting beds, fountains, and pools count as seating as long as they have smooth surfaces and round upper edges to ensure comfort. A maximum of 50 percent of seating may be movable. The provision of trees is also related to space size. An urban plaza of up to 2,000 square feet must have four trees; a plaza between 2,000 and 6,000 square feet must have one tree for every 600 square feet; and a plaza greater than 6,000 square feet must have one tree for every 600 square feet for the first 6,000 square feet, then one additional tree for every 1,000 square feet. Trees must have a minimum caliper size of four inches at planting and half of them must be planted with gratings flush to grade. Street trees are also required, planted at 25- foot intervals in the public sidewalk along the entire street frontage of any zoning lot with an urban plaza.

Although they are not required, other features that could enliven the urban plaza are expressly allowed - almost encouraged by their very listing - without need for any approval action on the part of the city. Termed “permitted obstructions” and described by Zoning Resolution as objects typically found in public parks and playgrounds, they include fountains and reflecting pools, waterfalls, sculptures, and other works of art, benches, seats, trees, bushes and flowers in planters or in planting beds, arbors and trellises, litter receptacles, bicycle racks, outdoor furniture, lights, flagpoles, public telephones, public toilets, temporary exhibitions, awnings, or canopies over the entrance to retail stores fronting the space, bollards, subway station entrances, and drinking fountains. This is hardly the constrained list of obstructions permitted in “as of right” plazas. Such objects may occupy from 38 to 50 percent of the urban plaza surface, depending on the size of the plaza. In addition, signs that are accessory to uses permitted within and adjoining the space are permitted.

If you’re a skater and you read through those design specifications you can clearly see how New York City’s urban plazas became amazing skate spots. Similar zoning and design specifications for urban plazas exist in cities all across the U.S. and cities in other countries worldwide.

Before I move onto the specifics of Pyramid Ledges I want to first elaborate more on one of the above design guidelines that I feel had a major effect on the development of skate culture that isn’t as apparent as the rest.

“To assure spatial contiguity, shape rules require that all points be visible from all other points within the major portion of the space, defined as an area with a minimum dimension of 40 feet, within that major portion.”

This design spec ensured that if your friend was trying a trick on an obstacle within the major portion of the plaza (skate spot) you would be able to see those attempts and hopefully the eventual make. Watching other people skate, especially friends, is a huge part of skating for a multitude of reasons. To help explain this in greater detail I’m going to include here three paragraphs from Sarah Williams Goldhagen’s book, Welcome to Your World.

Canonical neurons control motor actions; located in the brains frontal and parietal lobes, they fire when we are doing something such as hand-building or throwing a clay pot, and they also fire when we do nothing more than look at an inanimate object, like a lump of clay that we imagine ourselves manipulating with a goal in mind. Mirror neurons ( also located in the frontal and parietal lobes) also fire when we execute a given action such as sculpting clay and when we mentally simulate that action; they also fire when we observe someone else executing that action. The brain’s canonical and mirror neuron mechanisms indicate that in our experience of built environments, obviously human-made surfaces as well as manipulable objects really do prompt us to simulate the process by which they were crafted.

The operations of canonical and mirror neurons help to explain the visceral power of our responses to both form and surface based cues. When we look at an object with which we might potentially engage or mentally prepare to undertake a given action, such as opening a window or ascending a flight of stairs, canonical neurons fire. Mirror neurons fire not only when we prepare to open a window or walk up stairs, but—amazingly—when we merely watch another person performing such an action, as though, in order to understand what that person intends to do, we imagine ourselves performing the same act. So these neurons “mirror” the actions of the person we observe. The discovery of the canonical and mirror neuron mechanisms supports the emerging neuroscientific view that human motor systems may not be distinct from our sensory faculties, and that they may be two components in a single, unified system. Perception is never passive. Perception is perception for action.

If we pay attention to any object or element—a staircase, a ramp—which we associate with a given action—ascending a staircase step by step or pacing up a ramp—our mirror and canonical neurons can fire. This, in addition to the visual dynamism of combining diagonals with spiraling lines, explains why we see Le Corbusier’s famous coupling of a staircase and a ramp in the Villa Savoye as so dynamic. Looking at these two means of ascent or descent, we might nonconsciously feel a faint sense of activation in our legs and torso.

To put this simply, because of the way our brains take in visual information watching someone else skate can physically give you the feeling of doing what they are doing. This makes watching people skate an important element in the process of learning how to skate. Watching other people skate also creates a social aspect to skating. And this one design guideline (coupled with the seating guidelines) for NYC urban plazas, unwittingly, ensured that skaters would be able to watch their friends skate from the comfort of some type of seating at these skate spots/urban plazas. Now let’s move on to Pyramid Ledges.

Here is a link to the description of 75 Wall Street (aka Pyramid Ledges) from Privately Owned Public Space.

Please read through that entire description then picture yourself asking a skater to describe Pyramid Ledges. The answer you will most likely get is something like this “It’s two out ledges off a three stair. Kalis bigspin backtailed it.” Besides the colloquial name of the spot that refers to the stepped sides of the ledges, a mention of what there is to skate and a mention of who did what is probably all you’re gonna get. The average skater is definitely not gonna mention that the space was designed by an architecture firm (Welton Becket Associates). There will be no mention of how with their relative maturity, generous canopy, and open understory, the numerous trees create one of the most naturalistic ambiances of the downtown public spaces. For damn sure they will not say anything like the combination of brick and granite is an adept design choice, making it appear that the planter emerges holistically from the sweeping brick surface of the plaza while providing users (or skaters) with the smoother granite ledge for sitting (and skating). Though skaters may not mention any of these attributes of Pyramid Ledges these carefully thought out design features nonetheless have an effect on skaters experience of the space. Even if it’s on a mostly subconscious level, the effects matter. To illustrate this point let’s look at some differences between skating at a spot like Pyramid Ledges versus skating in a skatepark.

At Pyramid Ledges the most skateable objects are the two out ledges. Though there are other planters and ledges around, none of them have that good of run up and/ or they are skate stopped. Still those other planters do occasionally get skated but for the most part as long as it’s not in the way of the approach to the out ledges, that all becomes seating for skaters who want to watch their friends skate while they relax and chat in the dappled sunlight that pours through “the generous canopy of trees”. Like every other street skating spot that exists in the world, Pyramid Ledges was not designed for skating. So like most other street spots there’s a minimal amount of things to be skated, which means that every spot doesn’t appeal to every skater. While one might view this as a bad thing, I think it was and is a major component in the development of street skating culture.

In a skatepark that is clustered with something for everyone to skate but lacks proper seating, or adequate room to stand while not skating, a crew of skaters often end up all skating various obstacles according to their abilities and tastes. If one of the skaters isn’t into any of the obstacles at the skatepark but they also don’t want to be in the way of other skaters they will most likely have to leave the park or stand somewhere on the outskirts, where it’s difficult to see what their friends or anyone else skating is doing. If there are areas to sit that are next to or in the skatepark they usually don’t offer good views of the skatepark, and the decks of the quarterpipes, roll ins or slants are typically too small to hang out on. Skateparks are designed that way on purpose to make space for the maximum amount of obstacles. The skatepark has one purpose - skating. The environments where street skating developed such as parking lots, parks, school yards, urban plazas, etc. were designed for their one purpose as well, then skateboarders figured out what objects in these spaces were skateable. This meant there were usually a minimal amount of objects to skate at each spot. The lack of skateable objects and the usual abundance of open space not being used by skaters at these spots ended up creating a social environment. While sitting with other skaters at a plaza like Pyramid Ledges and watching other friends skate the focus can turn to things like minute details of trick attempts. A weird arm posture on one try. A sketchy make. A slam. Scrutinizing another skaters clothing. All of this ends up being discussed by the skaters sitting and watching and with the skaters trying tricks in between tries. One person likes the weird arm posture. Someone might think a sketchy make is cooler than a clean one. One skater might consider another skater’s pants to be too tight. It’s this kind of talk that developed and continues to develop the culture, tastes and style of street skating. In a skatepark it’s unlikely that any of this casual talking will occur. The skatepark is for skating only and the layout clearly lets you know this. As a result skating and socializing tend to get separated in a skatepark setting.

Skateboarding became popular enough to have space allotted for its own built environments. Skateboarders themselves then designed these spaces. It’s ironic and sad that a culture whose activity became popular enough to have space allotted for its own built environments would go on to design spaces according to its own tastes that would then become the worst environments for the further development and continuation of the culture. I don’t believe this was done intentionally. Instead I think it happened out of a lack of awareness of the effects the non skater built environments had on skaters. The way in which these skate spots influenced the development of street skating tricks and culture was and is still being overlooked. In later articles I plan on digging into how the marketing of skateboarding played a major role in forming such a myopic view of skating that these poorly designed skate parks would come to be what skaters designed for themselves.

For now let’s get back to the urban plaza versus skatepark topic. Let’s talk about surfaces, materials, texture and color. “The combination of brick and granite is an adept design choice”. The combination of concrete and metal is just what ended up being used to make modern skateparks. While concrete and metal is a major improvement over wood and PVC or the materials used to make pre fab skateparks, it doesn’t even come close to the myriad of surfaces, textures and colors that street skaters experience in the built environment. Once again to help me explain why this matters more than one might think I’m going to include a paragraph from Welcome to Your World, that explains how our brains process surface based cues.

How the brain analyzes the cues it gleans from surfaces is different. In order for us to make sense of surface-based cues such as texture, density, color, pattern, and so on, our visual impressions are primarily processed through a pathway that involves the medial temporal lobe and the hippocampus, necessitating that—in contrast to form perception—we call up our memories of prior experiences with similar surfaces. Such memories will draw up a lot of other varied information, not only from vision but also from our emotions and other sensory faculties—tactile sensations, smells, sounds and more. Our responses to surfaces, consequently, are more likely to powerfully contribute to our holistic experience of place than our response to forms. In short: form has wrongly been crowned king, because form based cues elicit less of a whole body, intersensory, and emotional response than surface-based cues do. Surfaces we experience emotionally and palpably. And in our societal discussions of the built environment, surfaces and materials are often not a major theme; in its construction, rich and enlivening materials are deemed a luxury, often “value engineered” out of existence.

This is 100% the case in modern skatepark design. Form has been crowned king and “rich and enlivening materials have been deemed a luxury, often value engineered out of existence”. This phenomenon is bad enough in the regular built environment, but for skateboarders who have a much more intimate and interactive experience with the built environment it’s a travesty.

At Pyramid Ledges the diagonal herringbone patterned brick ground isn’t perfect but it’s smoother than most other brick ground. The bricks are different shades of red and brown. Nicely patina’d by time. You feel a smooth clickity clacking as the four urethane wheels of your skateboard roll over every nook and cranny of your approach to the out ledge. The stepped sides of the planter can play tricks on a skater’s perception of the ledge. I think the stepped sides make the ledge look lower because it’s not one smooth plane rising up from the ground. The stepped sides also make it seem like less of a drop once you’re past the three stairs. If you don’t get on at the beginning of one of the out ledges and instead get on from the side, you roll over a smooth metal drain lined with small slots. Then a row and a 1/4 more of brick followed by a strip of granite. It can take some getting used to. Once you do though, the reward of the sound of metal trucks grinding the smooth, waxed granite that’s been worn in over decades of skating is well worth it. It makes a loud roar that skaters mimic by making a sound similar to that of one trying to hock up a loogey from the depths of their soul. I think the effect of the loud roar is similar to that of a loud race car whose engine roars when the driver floors the gas. It can make you feel tough. Of course the effect varies for each skater but it nonetheless evokes a feeling. Even a slide on the granite makes a noteworthy noise. Once you land your trick you’re back on that smooth herringbone patterned brick. Clickity clacking your way towards the street until you almost get run over by the M15 bus (the busiest bus route in the city and the United States according to Wikipedia). Luckily your buddy who was standing at the bottom of the ledge watching people traffic for you clotheslines your dumb ass before that happens. And guess what? Everybody up top saw your trick and is hyped for you. Even the tourists who stopped to watch are dapping you up. What a session.

Now let’s picture an out ledge in a skatepark.

As far as texture, color and materials go there isn’t much to talk about. The out ledges will most likely be white concrete (maybe red concrete if you’re in Arizona or Colorado) with black or silver angle iron surrounding the top. The run up and landing will be white concrete as well. No color variation, no patterns, no character. Grinding the metal makes a sound but not one that evokes much of a feeling. If the ledge isn’t waxed too much the most you can hope for is a screech of your wheels on a slide. The concrete and metal, like I said before, are a vast improvement compared to wood and PVC, but it’s dismal compared to a spot like Pyramid Ledges. I wish there were more positive things I could say about skatepark materials but that is the reality. Even as far as the design goes the out ledges would definitely not have anything like the stepped sides of Pyramid Ledges. They would probably just be plain old rectangles. You wouldn’t have to wait for tourists to pass or almost get hit by the M15 bus but you would have to watch out for all the other skaters taking unpredictable routes around the rest of the skatepark. Much harder to time and to dodge than slow moving pedestrians and not as visible as the huge M15 bus. Upon landing your trick you would find that none of your friends saw the make. They couldn’t stand or sit up top and watch because they would be in the way of other skaters. Same thing at the bottom. Not that cool of a skate sesh.

If modern skateboarding, culture, style and tricks hadn’t developed and came to be what it is today in built environments not meant for skateboarding then skateboarding as we know it today would be different. The non skater made environments played such a huge role in shaping skateboarding that only paying attention to the basics of the skateable object(s) in these spaces for inspiration for skate parks runs the risk of completely altering skateboarding culture as we know it - in my opinion for the worse. Skateparks differ so vastly from the non skater built environments that a different type of skating takes place in skateparks. Skateparks are skate, skate, skate. Street spots are skate for a bit. Sit. Watch some other people skate. Chat. Skate some more. Maybe talk with someone walking by who’s interested in the skating happening. But skate spots aren’t perfect for skating and it turns out neither are skateparks. However I believe there is a middle ground between skateparks and street spots. And that middle ground would be a much needed improvement over the parks we have now. A skatepark needs to be designed for socializing as well as skating. Skating is an intimate interaction with built environments and the textures, colors and surfaces should be designed to enhance this interaction. If we keep designing parks for the sake of tricks only then skating might as well be just another sport.

• Here is a link to a Jenkem article about pyramid ledges

• And here is a link to a map that shows all of the P.O.P.S. plazas in New York City and includes descriptions of the plazas from Privately Owned Public Spaces that are similar to the description of Pyramid ledges. This one is my personal favorite.

• Below are links to purchase the two books I referenced in this article:

  • Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives by Sarah Williams Goldhagen

  • Privately Owned Public Space: The New York City Experience by Jerold S Kayden