" hErOEs On whEEls " ™ ...skate and rollerblade. ...to the editor. ...yourself or a friend. ...this site to a friend. editor's note: Millbury Skatepark * Outdoor: 'Crete / Asphalt * Free * Trannie / Street * Rating: "King" of the McParks Where is this place?: We thought this park was in Millbury MA, but everyone in Millbury has denied it. We're pretty sure it's between Milford and Worchester... but that's all we know at this point. Yes, we took the shots. No, we didn't do a good job w/ the directions. Help us out. When you need a new shower for your bathroom, and you don't want to get all gnarly with custom tile work etc., you can go down to Home Depot and buy a "pre-fabricated" one. You know, one of those beige one-piece plastic units, soap dish and all. While pre-fab works okay for cheap and dirty shower installs, the concept typically fails in skatepark design. Millbury should know. They went cheap and dirty and that's exactly what they got. We usually label any pre-fab effort a "McPark" - mass produced and tastless, just like those McBurgers out there. While the skatepark at Keyes Memorial park in Millbury is big enough - the "King of the McParks" in New England - that's not really saying much... Millbury has a gang of features... all of them under 3 feet tall. Shit. The next big problem with this park [like many of the other McParks around the world], is that it's set up on asphalt, w/ asphalt finishing work to blend together the jenky transitions of the concrete ramps and the skating surface. After a few weeks, the asphalt packs down and those transitions begin to fall apart. Then you've got the asphalt skating surface itself, getting rougher and rougher each month, adding to the chunk-chunk transitions. The low-budget design's stink becomes more obvious every day. Yet another problem are the flowless layouts. Too much space between features requires you to push your ass off all over the rough asphalt. Huffing and puffing between tricks, you're probably about ready to bribe a buddy to give you a ride to park with a better set-up! McParks are skateable, but they're lazy solutions to skateparks and we diss that kind of half-ass effort every time. Get out with that noise. On a brighter note - and proof that SOME skatepark is better than NO skatepark - we saw some raw skate talent that day that made us stop and say "Daaa-yam!" This kid named Schuyler Ricketts was lurking, determined to bust despite the 95 degree humid torture of a New England heat wave. Rocking a shirt w/ a collar and a New England preppy look, he was dismantling this crappy park like a wrecking ball. We filmed big air. We filmed tech-tech. He landed anything and everything he tried, trick after trick, until we were like, "uhhh, guess we got enough." This kid is gonna blow up if wants to, and no bullshit McPark is gonna hold him back. Mass skaters have a few options locally, with new parks popping up all the time. For skateparks that don't suck, check out Rampage in Milford or a slick metal park at the YMCA in Worchester [review coming spring '02]. Further away, but worth just about any drive, is the antithesis of the McPark, a skater designed/built skatepark in Newburyport MA ["good lord!"]. Now go get some... Directions: Who knows?!? If you know where this park is, pls email us and we'll post. ...scroll down for pics [ click pix to enlarge ] ^ Located on a big athletic field that you CANNOT see from the street, look for this driveway w/ the stone pillars to find the Millbury skatepark ^ The park isn't that fun, but Schuyler just makes it LOOK like a good time... talent! Mr Ricketts, seen here, slicin' melons like it ain't no thing. ^ See that dirty asphalt creeping up the spine... asphalt in skate- parks sucks! ^ SHITEO Here's an ani-sequence of Schuyler on that 3-sitty flip tip. ^ Schuyler didn't care that this park is weaker than a handshake from a 5 year old ^ As long as the trannie and coping are okay, mini ramps are pretty hard to screw up... I rode one like this in Newport RI, it was okay. [ click pix to enlarge ] [ © 2001 ] [ ABOUT ] [ CONTACT ] [ SUBMIT ] [ ADVERTISE ] [ HOME ]