Peter Mathews Memorial Skate Garden is

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

' first legal outdoor public skate park.

History

The Peter Mathews Memorial Skate Garden is built on a

Brownfield In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land prev ...

site of a Bevo Mill former gas station, auto repair, and radiator service station that ceased operating in 1988. Since 1999, the City of Saint Louis has owned the 14,000-square-foot property through the Land Reutilization Authority. Cleanup of the lot began in 2003. Impressed by how they maintained their DIY skatepark, the City of Saint Louis rented the current site of the Peter Mathews Memorial Skate Garden to the KHVT.

Kinghighway D.I.Y. skatespot

A group of local skaters between 2009 and 2015 built the Kinghighway D.I.Y. skatespot under the South Kinghshighway viaduct. When the elevated roadway was demolished in July 2015, St. Louis was left with no free public skateparks. The group organized themselves into a non-profit the Kingshighway Vigilante Transitions (KHVT) and petitioned the city for a space to build the first free-to-the-public, legal skate park in the City of St. Louis.

Peter Mathews

The skate garden was named for Peter Mathews, a local skater who died tragically in a car accident.

References

{{Reflist Skateparks in the United States Parks in St. Louis Tourist attractions in St. Louis Sports venues in St. Louis Redevelopment projects in the United States