Rebuilding Lynch Skatepark
Words by MacKenzie Boner
Photos by Jccwa
While the skate community has been given a stigma from outsiders since the beginning of ollies and kickflips, others have known the warm, family-like bond that radiates from everyone involved. Skateboarders are resourceful, creative people that can spin anything into something more positive, like Lynch Park.
When word got out that Lynch Park, down on 20th and Dorcas Street, was the new spot to skate, the park started to see more traffic than it had in years. Skateboarders are known for finding underutilized spaces and taking advantage of them. Lynch was the perfect place to set up a skatepark. The park itself hasn’t been used for years. It was low-key, the neighborhood supported it, and the people that came to the park took care of it.
Lynch Park had become a skate destination many years ago. A couple of guys that live around the park put in a few ramps and a rail. The beginning of a true do-it-yourself park. As the park grew, more people designed and built pieces to add to the mix and it blossomed into a place for skateboarders and bikers to master their craft. The skatepark inside the unused tennis courts got good traction back in 2019. Go Skateboarding Day was hosted there locally with food, competitions, and an electric atmosphere. It turned into a great place for the kids in the surrounding neighborhoods to have a place to come and be part of a much larger community that thrives in Omaha.
A once populated park that fell to the wayside, Lynch Park became a sanctuary for the kids. “These kids have an opportunity to have something of their own, and be around people of all walks of life that can give them the best direction they can.” Brenton Gomez, fellow skateboarder and one of the many people spearheading this project said, “It’s a prime spot to give the kids a place to grow, learn, and really build themselves within a passion and a community.”
With there only being four skate parks in Omaha, including Lynch Park, losing it a few months ago felt like a hard blow to the skateboarding community. The city came in and put a stop to the skatepark existing, but not for long. “If you want to make a change in your neighborhood, you can do that. If you make enough noise, the city will listen to you.” Gomez stated. The Nebraska Public Skateparks Council and supporters created a ripple to show that the park was a necessary piece to that neighborhood and the skate community.
“If you tear out a park, you’re ripping out a whole community”, Christian Turbes, skateboarder and skatepark council member said. With the amount of usable skateparks in Omaha being a small number, the fight for this one was strong. Even the Tony Hawk Foundation has shown support for another legitimate skatepark in the Omaha area. Tony Hawk himself voiced his support for the city to get behind what the Skatepark Council is doing. “The city is concerned with getting pinged with building up the skate community, they don’t want their parks looking bad”, Turbes said.
The project within Lynch has a few steps to get it to a permanent spot, but the Nebraska Public Skateparks Council is working with the city to make that all happen. Temporary rails that the city fabricated and the old ramps that were there originally were reinstalled. The new skatepark would be on two of the four tennis courts located in Lynch Park. Eventually, there could be concrete poured, quarter pipes put in, and a more legitimate park built.
The Nebraska Public Skateparks Council doesn’t want to stop at Lynch. They plan to work with the city to take overlooked locations and transform them into something usable again, all across Greater Nebraska. “We want this to expand across Nebraska. Further than Lynch, further than Omaha. We can turn a parking block into something that could change a kid’s life,” said Gomez.
We will be keeping an eye on everything as the park takes on these phases and grows into another haven for the neighborhood.
Learn more about the Nebraska Public Skateparks Council and their mission here.
Christian Turbes
Brenton Gomez
Christian and Brenton are two of 11 members on the Nebraska Skatepark Council we’ll be highlighting as we document this project.
