How could $81,450 help a town? The list is likely long, but in Hyde Park, the money will help build a facility for people of all ages to get wild on wheels.
That facility is a skate park, likely proposed for Pine Woods Park on Pine Woods Road. The Town of Hyde Park Recreation Commission received a $81,450 grant from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation last month to build the park, designed for skateboarding, roller-blading, and BMX biking.
Elizabeth Waldstein-Hart, a Hyde Park resident who drafted the grant application in June of 2004, said that town residents have been working for years to build a skate park, but were not able to raise enough funding for it.
She said the estimated cost of the park is $160,000. Along with the grant, she said, the rest of the money would come from “in-kind” services from the town and “hopefully” from some private donations raised through the Hyde Park Skate Committee, a group of community volunteers working to establish a safe place to skate.
Waldstein-Hart said the park is a necessity in Hyde Park because there are a lack of recreational facilities for children in the town. She also said there is some concern from commercial property owners about the safety of children currently skateboarding on their property.
“The park will be a manned facility,” Waldstein-Hart said.
Hyde Park Supervisor Yancy McArthur said that the town’s Recreation Commission is in charge of the skate park plans and location. The proposal calls for a location at Pine Woods Park, but, according to McArthur, the commission has discussed building it in Hackett Hill Park on East Market Street.
In 2000, McArthur said, the Town Board applied for and received a $5,000 grant from New York State Assemblyman Joel Miller’s (R-Poughkeepsie) office. That money, McArthur said, was used to blacktop the roadway into Pine Woods Park.
“I think the state has been generous by contributing to the town,” McArthur said. “It’s nice to see we can now make a skate park in the community a reality. A skate park would be a safer environment than skating in parking lots and roadways.”
The $81,450 grant, McArthur said, is being used to put up fencing, skateboard ramps, gates, signs, and other necessities.
Waldstein-Hart said the Recreation Commission will decide the skate park’s hours and admission fees. The park, she said, would be open “seasonally” for Hyde Park residents.
“We’re not sure if it’s going to be open for non (Hyde Park ) residents,” Waldstein-Hart said. “The Recreation Commission will determine that.”
Waldstein-Hart said she does not know when the park construction will begin.