Sean Bascom

These images were made at Burnside Skatepark’s 34th birthday celebration. 

The first concrete was poured by skateboarders against the embankment under the east end of the Burnside Bridge on October 31st, 1990. Since then, Burnside Skatepark throws a birthday party every Halloween with a costumed skate session, live bands, and lots of fire. Calloused and gritty, this community-built third space has held fast over the decades as polished high-rises spring up around it.

Skaters continue to build and maintain the park as a collective, adding new sections, maintaining existing surfaces, and keeping things fresh with rotating mural work throughout the space. Thanks to skatepark advocates, the upcoming Burnside Bridge replacement project will preserve the park and keep it open for the majority of the process. Planners and engineers have even gone so far as to offer to preserve the iconic criss cross support beams that loom above the park and whose pillars support the ramps below. 

Although long hours in committee sessions, neighborhood association meetings, and urban planning workgroups have contributed to keeping the park intact, the spirit of the place is fed by the frenetic and boundless energy of skateboarders celebrating the space they built together.