Highland South Memorial Park

Luke Conway, 29, and Joe Linksman, 30, are partnering with the Beacon Recreation Department to build a skateboard park at Memorial Park. Plans call for converting several little-used tennis courts in the park’s northwest corner.“There’s such a community here of people who grew up skating and want their own kids to grow up with it, too,” Conway says. “But they don’t have any place to ride.”Mark Price, Beacon’s recreation director, says the idea of constructing a skate park has arisen from time to time, “but you need a community to drive a project like this. These guys have carried the baton farther than anyone else.”Joe Linksman and Luke Conway are working to create a skateboard park at Memorial Park in Beacon. (Photo by J. Simms)A similar project in Newburgh was proposed to the City Council in 2013 by a group of skateboarders but not approved until this past July. The facility, budgeted at nearly $500,000 and funded in large part by state grants, is expected to open in November at the Delano-Hitch Recreation Park.Conway and Linksman appeared before the Beacon City Council in July to formally propose a park but had been working behind the scenes for several months with Price and Mayor Randy Casale. Now they’re awaiting site prep from the Recreation Department before launching a campaign to fundraise and get the public involved.“It’s going to be a true community project,” says Linksman, an environmental attorney who doesn’t skate but was inspired to get involved after hearing Conway speak at a public forum about the need for a park. “We’re going to raise the money ourselves, do the construction ourselves and maintain it ourselves. Once we get approval we’ll start gathering sponsors and volunteers.”Conway, who works in conservation, said there was no skating scene in Beacon when he moved to the city in 2012. But in the five years since, he said, there has been an “influx of people” who ride.In 2014 Newburgh contracted a skate park construction firm to create a design, shown here. A... (Highlands Current)