Skaters rally to brave the uncertainty of the Gwen Bowl
Local skateboarder riding the lip of the Gwen Bowl. This photo is a screen shot of a video recorded circa 2012. Courtesy Photo by Tony Pena
By RAUL GARCIA | The South Padre Island Post
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — A place skateboarders from across the Valley have called home since 2006 has been closed, and the future of the “Gwen Bowl” is uncertain.
Recently, area skaters arrived at the skate spot that has always been open and found themselves face-to-face with a sign stating no skating allowed.
The skate bowl, modeled after California style skating from the 80’s sits on a small piece of land at Cross Church located in Laguna Vista.
Now that new leadership has taken over at the church, skaters fear it will be demolished, so they have taken to Facebook and asked to talk with church leaders to come to an agreement to allow skaters to continue to skate Gwen Bowl.
The skate bowl was funded and built in 2006 on the church property after approval of the congregation granted the nonprofit South Padre Island Texas Skateboarders, also known as S.P.I.T.S. to build the community skate bowl.
Please help save Gwen’s bowl.
This was built by our local skateboarders, and named for my daughter. After she was ran over at the intersection, while skateboarding home from the library.
Posted by Becky McCormack on Wednesday, August 19, 2020
“We agreed to keep it as a public skatepark when it was built and that should remain if people unite together and save that skateboarding pool skatepark spot,” Eric Bratten, stated on Facebook. “It was the first public concrete skate spot ever built in South Texas and is historical in that respect.”
The skate bowl was named after Gwen McCormack, who died after being run over by a vehicle while riding her skateboard from the nearby library.
“Before we had all the nice skateparks around there was this bowl to visit, and even to this day its still a pretty cool spot to skate,” Juan Natheran said on Facebook.
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