The motley crew, inspired by word-of-mouth thatquickly spread through the skateboarding community, gathered and removed chunksof concrete and gravel from the mini lipslide gulley, a four-foot deep concretepool. The bowls had been filled in and covered with cement when street-styleskating became popular, but the business didn't survive much longer, and thelot was sold in 1996. For a few hours, it was a skater's paradise.
"We dug that thing out in 8 hours," saysMike Schmidt, who grew up skating the park.
"Eventually our crew got so big that we hadone person on one side, one person in the bowl, both digging. It was supercamaraderie and teamwork," says Jesse Geboy, another former Turffrequenter.
The police, upon hearing of the goings-on at thesite (It's speculated this was due to a report on the 10:00 WITI-TV Channel 6News), showed up and put a halt to the operation.
"I think it started out with the main goal ofjust to skate it one more time," Schmidt explains. Now, that goal hasbroadened. The skaters want their park back. Having received anenthusiastic response from current and former skaters as well as locals andpeople worldwide who have never even set foot on the property, it might justhappen.
According to John Gonzales, a former Turffrequenter and creator of the Milwaukee Skateboard Association (an organizationdesigned to help resurrect the park), the Turf's indoor/outdoor park, madepossible by "retractable walls, similar to garage doors, built aroundthe skating area," allowed the Turf to host skateboardersyear-round. The five bowls, all of differing sizes, depths, and terrains,"were so various that if you could ride the Turf, you could rideanywhere," says Jerome Urbaniak, an employee from 1988 to 1991 at the proshop housed on the property (which sold skateboard-related gear).
The Turf had great draw for big-name skaters fromall over the country.
"It was the Mecca to come to," saysUrbaniak. "You had parks in California at the time, but the big onethat was therethat all the pros ridewas upland, and that got dozed, and allthat was really left that was a good, good pro park was the Turf. Nation-wide. Itwas the place, period."
Members of the Bones Brigade (the Powell Peraltaskateboard company team that included legends such as Tony Hawk, SteveCaballero, Lance Mountain, and Mike Vallely), the Santa Cruz team (a group thatincluded Jason Jesse, Steve Alba, Christian Hosoi, Natas Kaupas, Duane Peters,Tony Alva, Ray Barbee, and Chris Miller), and numerous other skateboard royaltywere known to travel to the park.
"If the Turf were to come back again, itwould be forever, because skateboarding is now far more accepted,"Urbaniak says. "The park would generate revenue. It would bringpeople to the city of Milwaukee, with skateboarding being as popular as it istoday.” He adds, “There are guys out there with five million dollar shoecontracts for skateboarding. You've got Fuel TV (a channel devoted toskateboarding, BMX bikes, surfing, and the like); Tony Hawk making appearanceson children's television shows ‘The Suite Life of Zack and Cody’ and ‘Yo GabbaGabba’. It just has such a wide public acceptance now as compared to when I wasgrowing up in the early- to mid- '90s.”
Gonzales, who has worked on a skateboard camp forkids four years in a row, says, "With skateboarding, when another guy andI are both learning a new trick, I want to push him so he does a betterjob. With any other sport, I'd want to beat him. If he skates betterthan I do, I'm glad because I'm going to watch him and learn from him and do itjust like him."
According to Emlynn Grisar, WisDOT SoutheastRegion Communications Manager, in a letter posted on the "Save theTurf" website, “The land the former skatepark was located upon waspurchased to accommodate a new westbound I 894 off-ramp to northbound Loomis Road.It will be used as a staging area during the important Mitchell Interchangecore reconstruction contract, slated to begin this fall. Following theconstruction project’s completion, WisDOT will turn the excess land over to thecity of Greenfield, per a memorandum of understanding. The final disposition ofthe parcel will be decided by the city at that time.”
For more information visit www.savetheturf.com
