Paine's Park

Philadelphia's landmark public skate plaza on the Schuylkill River Banks behind the Art Museum, opened in 2013 after a decade of work by the skater-led Franklin's Paine Skatepark Fund. Its south section — low ollie boxes, benches and a lot of flatground — was described by two returning skaters in Philadelphia magazine as a de facto old-folks zone, and that is exactly what it is good for.

Paine’s is a plaza, not a bowl park: quarterpipes, banks, ledges, curbs, manual pads, flat and handrails, a stair set and a wallride, spread across a riverfront site that doubles as a public park and connects straight onto the Schuylkill River Trail. Head for the south end first. When Philadelphia magazine sent two “oldheads” to dust off their boards here, they settled in that section — “low ollie boxes and benches and a lot of flat ground for cruising” — and called it a de facto old-folks zone that suited them fine. FDR, the city’s famous DIY park, is a very different proposition.

It was conceived in 2002 by Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund, the skater-run non-profit that later helped win a skate plaza at the Municipal Services Building, and it opened in 2013. Limited parking at the Waterworks Drive lot off Kelly Drive and paid parking at the Art Museum garage; SEPTA buses 43 and 38 stop nearby.