It's a sweltering July day and a group of young people are hustling around a rented rotating cement mixer.
Each has a job. One rips open bags of concrete mix. Another wearing a face mask dumps it into the mixer. A third pours water in. Then they upend the mixer and go to work with shovels, scooping the wet concrete onto a frame of steel bars and wood they built themselves.
They're not contractors, they're skateboarders. And this isn't a construction site; it's a largely-forgotten basketball court tucked away behind some apartments near the University of Cincinnati. Skaters simply call it "The Courts."
Longtime skateboarder Mason Russell organized the concrete pour for the three-foot-high embankment. He says it's all about building something for the community.
"I put a GoFundMe together to see if anyone wants to support it, and started sharing it around," he says. "People were like, 'yeah, let's do it.' So I framed up the first side [of the embankment] and people were like, 'wow, this is going to happen.' So we just picked a day and it happened."
Russell enlisted the help of some seasoned skate park builders for the day who were happy to lend a hand.
One of them, who simply goes by the name Brandt, got his start working with concrete at the Newport DIY park, which is under the Kentucky side of the I-471 bridge. It started in 2009 and has grown significantly since.
Using the experience he gained from that park, Brandt says he's gone on to work on professionally-built parks across the country.
Cincinnati's next DIY park?
Now, skateboarders want to bring the do-it-yourself energy that built Newport and The Courts to a park in northern Over-the-Rhine's Mohawk district. Neighborhood leaders say Hanna Park is underused and struggles with crime.
"We've been in this neighborhood for quite a few years, and the actual use of the park is minimal," says Julie Fay, Mohawk Neighborhood Community Development Corporation (CDC) President. "In order to activate the space properly, this idea came up of the DIY skate park."
Fay and others who live in the neighborhood say a temporary pop-up skate spot near Hanna Park in May was a hit with neighbors. Now, the CDC and community council are interested in something more permanent there that skaters build themselves.
Skate park advocate Evan Walker runs the Cincinnati Skatepark Project, which advocated for a full-size, professionally built skate park being constructed in Camp Washington. He's taking the lead on promoting the Hanna Park idea as well.
He says both kinds of parks are important. Big, professionally built parks can serve as destination spots that draw skaters in from other places, including professionals, while smaller spots, like The Courts and potentially Hanna Park, also play a unique role in the skateboarding community.
They're places to meet up, to socialize, and to learn the sport away from the sometimes-imposing hustle and bustle of larger, professionally built parks. They're also more customizable and adaptable than large parks with permanent features.
Speaking at a town hall near Hanna Park, Walker outlined the plan for a permanent do-it-yourself skate spot there.
"With this one, the community group came to us and said 'hey, we've been reading these articles about this plaza in San Francisco that helped solve a bunch of social problems," Walker says. "We'd love to have skaters come and make use of this space."
A San Francisco success story
San Francisco officials long struggled with U.N. Plaza, a block from San Francisco City Hall. The plaza drew criticism for open-air drug use and crime. And it wasn't long ago the city treated skaters as part of the problem, chasing them away when they congregated to skate, issuing tickets, confiscating skateboards and removing benches and other items skaters liked to skate on.
Then the city had a change of heart fueled by its parks department.
Now, skaters aren't just welcome at the plaza — the city has actively courted them, spending roughly $2 million to enable skateboarders to add new features to skate.
Walker doesn't envision a $2 million city investment at Hanna. He says neighborhood groups and skaters just want the city to pour a new concrete slab. They'll build the rest.
While the skateboarders haven't been a miracle cure at U.N. Plaza, San Francisco officials have said they're pleased with the reduction in crime, litter and drug use. The idea is that skaters and people who come to watch them take care of the spaces they use and help discourage more dangerous, anti-social behavior.
Cleaning up The Courts
Skaters at The Courts, the spot near UC, say they've seen that in action. Jake Knapke has been coming to The Courts since it was built. He showed up for the recent concrete pour.
As he filled a bucket of water for the concrete mix, he explained the park started a few years ago with a random collection of things to skate on — an old refrigerator, small wooden boxes and road cones. Then a few skaters got together over the course of a couple days to build a concrete ledge.
"After that ledge was built, you come here any day on 5 p.m. or on the weekends, and it was popping," he says.
These days there are several semi-permanent concrete features, as well as moveable temporary ones. Knapke says he noticed a transformation as skateboarders flocked here.
"Around the time we built that ledge, people were coming out here with weed whackers and stuff, pulling weeds, just cleaning up the spot," he says. "It was kind of neglected [with] glass everywhere. Now people clean it up [and] make it an actual usable spot for the community."
Back in Over-the-Rhine, Walker and neighborhood advocates say they're making good progress in talks with the city about a potential spot in Hanna Park.
WVXU reached out to the Cincinnati Recreation Commission, which runs Hanna Park, about the idea. CRC Director Daniel Betts said the commission is "excited" about the early talks they've had with skaters and community members.
“This kind of community-driven project is exactly the type of creative activation that can transform underutilized spaces into vibrant hubs of recreation and connection," Betts wrote in a statement. "Activating public spaces like Hanna Park for recreational use isn’t just about skateboarding — it’s about investing in neighborhoods, encouraging healthy lifestyles, and giving people — especially youth — safe, inclusive places to gather and express themselves. We look forward to exploring this concept further with the community and our partners.”
The vision advocates have developed is a mostly flat plaza with ledges and small obstacles skaters can make and re-make as they see fit.
Skateboarder Ian Bulling, who studied urban planning, has even drawn up professional renderings of the proposed park. The designs call for lots of trees and seating, as well as preserving an existing basketball court to make the space welcoming for non-skaters.
Walker says that open feeling is pivotal.
"Skaters have interest in overlooked spaces," he says. "They're happy to hang out in vacant lots if you have something to skate. But that means they're willing and interested in working with the community where it's welcoming to everybody."
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