It’s been Cherry Hill resident Lyle Rosenthal’s wish to have a skatepark in the area since he learned the sport at 8 years old. Twelve years later, it has come true, and he has his mother to thank.
County officials announced last month an $87,000 grant to fund a county skatepark in the township, on the east side of Cooper River Park, the result of prodding from Marla Rosenthal and some state funding.
“There is nothing like the passion of a mother fighting for her children, and this skate park is the culmination of that for this family,” said Assemblyman Louis Greenwald of the skating space, now in its design phase.
Marla Rosenthal has been a skatepark advocate for more than a decade.
“My son is a skateboarder, and 12 years ago, he said, ‘Mom, we need a skate park,’ and this was his dream,” she recalled. “I’ve wanted him to have a safe place and a close place to go. It’s been a wonderful project for us to do together for all these years, and we have a wonderful community of skaters.
“Because of you,” Rosenthal said to Greenwald and two county commissioners, “this is now a reality. And I thank you so very much.”
The community came out in droves for a planning meeting in February that drew more than 100 people. During her work on the skatepark project, Rosenthal has gotten to know and love the skateboard community to which her son belongs.
“I would take him to a skatepark and the older skaters would take care of the younger skaters,” she noted. “That was the first thing, that there’s such misconceptions about skaters.
“They really are a wonderful group of people who are very passionate about their sport,” Rosenthal added. “They work really hard at it.”
Unlike most sports, skateboarders have few places to pursue their sport. Audubon resident Ronnie Gordon is a longtime skater of more than 20 years who teaches the sport at the Skateboard Academy in Philadelphia. Although there has been an increase in North Jersey skateparks, options in South Jersey are few.
“Right now there is a skatepark in Pennsauken, Maple Shade, Medford and Camden, and that’s it,” Gordon pointed out. “If you go up north, almost every single town by Elizabeth and up that way close to New York City (has) a skatepark … and every town has a tennis court, basketball court, pickleball court.”
The skatepark announcement highlights the need for safe places in the community to pursue the sport.
“I feel like a lot of people have perceived us over the years as kids,” Lyle Rosenthal said. “The most common thing I’ve ever heard when I’ve been kicked out of a street spot is, ‘Go get a job, you punk,’ or ‘Do this somewhere else; you’re destroying our property.’
“ … We’ve just had to resort to this (sidewalk skating) because they haven’t given us places to go, while we have to watch all these kids who play baseball or whatever get a multimillion-(dollar) complex to do their sport.
“We have to skate on the sidewalk, and then get yelled at for skating on the sidewalk.”
County Commissioner Ginny Betteridge praised the work that resulted in county funding for the new skatepark.
“This is a real positive day, a real culmination of everyone’s efforts to create the opportunity to be able to build a park,” she said.
