Borough Dismantles Skateboard Park After Neighbors Complain About Noise

Fort Lee’s Skateboard Park at between Anderson Ave. and Inwood Terrace is no more—at least at the location it has occupied since 2008. The skate park was dismantled this week because neighboring residents were complaining about noise.

But that doesn’t mean the now vacant area at Whitey Lang Park won’t be used for other purposes, nor that Skateboard Park itself is gone for good, said Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich.

“[The skate park] was dismantled, we’re going to relocate it and it’s going to be converted into either a tennis court or a basketball court,” Sokolich said. “I made the decision. I made the call, and we’ll deal with it. But it’s going to go somewhere else, and it’s going to be less of a burden on the neighbors.”

Sokolich added that the park was made with materials that are “readily removable and transplantable elsewhere.”

“It was mostly because of noise,” he said. “I was there almost every day making sure kids were wearing helmets, and then I started hearing from the neighbors. They were all very supportive of the fact that there was a place for these kids to go, as opposed to going on the streets and causing problems and property damage.”

Sokolich explained that the park was “in total disrepair” before the borough gave it an overhaul using grant money, replacing the base and putting in the skate ramps in August of 2008.

“And when I helped design it, I made sure that the width of that fencing, the perimeter of that park would be big enough to have a regulation-sized tennis court if we ever had to revert to that, or alternatively, a regulation, full-court basketball court,” he said.

Asked if he would have done anything differently, given the complaints, Sokolich said, “Absolutely not.”

“We had the skateboard park for two or three years,” he said. “It was used by thousands of kids.”

Sokolich added that he always defers “to the folks that live on top of whatever it is that I’m doing,” and that he believes basketball or tennis courts in that space would be well-used and “more well-received” by the residents who live in the area.

As for a safe place where kids can go to stay off the streets and skate on the ramps and other equipment the borough purchased in 2008, Sokolich said he’s working with the PIP, among “other places where there’s available land and a little more tucked away,” so that whatever noise is generated by kids on skateboards is not a problem.

“We’ll find another corner somewhere where it’s going to be less onerous on the residents of the neighborhood,” Sokolich said, quickly adding, “Everything is in-house. We’re not spending a nickel on outside contractors to do this.”