Ambassador Skate Plaza
I never knew that there had also been a putting course when Tee to Green was around. Actually, I never knew much about the business, other than that it had come and gone pretty quickly and there was some shadiness and a lot of rumors surrounding the project. People still talk about what a mess that was. The property is now owned by the Ambassador Bridge Group. That means that it will most likely remain abandoned for some time. Even if the bridge was built tomorrow, there's no chance that the footprint would extend this far to the creek (it's literally on the bike path). Can you imagine how sweet it would be to have access to this park? If the steel fence was rerouted around the parcel of land (instead of by it), skaters could probably fix the grounds up in a week's time. Plus, since there is access from the bike trail it would be easy to get to from a couple different directions.
Amherst Street is not far from this spot. And the future Rock Harbor Village is a mere stone's throw away. There are also rumors of a future sculpture trail extending from the student village all the way to Hoyt Lake (more on that later). This skate park would be situated away from traffic and away from anyone who considers skateboarders a nuisance. I bet that this park is only owned by the Ambassador Bridge Group because it came along as part of the vast driving range land deal. How cool would it be if a pro-skate organization approached The Ambassador Group to see if there would be any way of extending a bike trail dogleg out and around the park from the bike trail? It couldn't hurt to ask.
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Comment Options
benfranklin
Buffalo Rising may soon be 'Newell's_misadventures_on_his_bike.com'
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duff
nice timing, I just noticed this yesterday for the first time, but I was clipped in to my road bike and couldn't investigate. Thanks for the recon.
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MiesvanderDoh
Newell in the future please refrain from posting things like this.
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Einstein
looks like the remains from a post-apocalyptic city.
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berniceheartsyou
This is awesome. i know of a lot of people trying to get a skate park downtown.. i wonder if they know about this place?!?! Newell- thank you for posting this!
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urbansoul
Any word on the Wyndham interest in the Statler?
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lizzyb
Lost and Found. Make sure it's safe from vermin and I hope the skaters use it. Good for you Newell. Keep finding the lost treasures of Buffalo and piping up about them. The road less traveled is your path. ciao
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sb16
Great, now the fence will be fixed and the park probably pulverized.
/end sarcasm
sry had to joke, you know I'm probably right tho. Honestly as great as it sounds a Skate park doesn't sound possible unless you really got some Pros to plunk down alot of money. Insurance for those places are a bit steep.
Honestly how many skaters would pay to skate? I never see anyone at the Skate park on Harlem in West Seneca, which is very disappointing.
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sb16
Honestly I overuse the word honestly.
and I'm not a Negative Nancy, I'd love to see this happen and would go to help clean up if something like this happened.
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artichoke
As a former Buffalonian and lifetime skateboarder, it might be a lost cause. At least unless the city were to designate it as an official park. People have been hopping (or cutting through) the fence for years, as well as doing their own improvements (as seen in the second picture.)
Unfortunately, the neighborhood kids seem pretty content to come by every few weeks and trash the place. Throwing stuff into the pools, knocking down the extensions that get built, etc. The water tends to get pretty stagnant too.
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300miles
This website has a weird obsession with skate parks...
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Perry
I love it - a little urban exploring produces an unexpected find. I must check this place out now.
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metrobflo
Kids have been skating this SECRET SPOT for years. Every so often some local skaters go and bail the water out and make small improvement with a few bags of cement. However, by shedding light on this spot, I think, the property owner may put tighter security in. Lets hope not!
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Biniszkiewicz
I doubt the Ambassador Bridge group is about to suddenly run the ship very tightly. Their interest is long term and they are out of town. I doubt they read this or hear of any of this.
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RaChaCha
Newell, great article and cool discovery. Here's a Pictometry (a Rochester company!) view on MSN maps: http://tinyurl.com/4pwtqw.
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P525
Not much of a discovery for those have been around for a few years -- yes, it was all part of the Tee-to-Green project. When completed, it was an early version of brownfields redevelopment, the driving range and other improvements capped a former contaminated site. Unfortunately, the developer had some very questionable buisness practices and a couple of years of operation, was is receivorship with most of his creditors. I think the propoerty was ultimiately auctioned off and picked up by Militello Real Estate, which was eventually found to be acting on behalf of the Ambassador Niagara Group.
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Arelli
Yeah, so as a couple people already said, this place has been skated by some locals for years now. Many of us have invested a decent amount of money and time over the years buying bags of concrete and hauling it back there to fill in the cracks and build up the one main kidney shaped bowl. Every year though the neighborhood kids with nothing better to do come back there and trach all the work that was put into it. The past couple years nobody has dedidicated any real time to upkeep because they have seen too much of their hard work go to waste. It does still get skated though, and if this little article brings light to the fact that this place is there, and if anyone now gets in trouble for tresspassing or anything back there it would pretty sad that some guy on his bike felt the need to write an article about the place and screw it up for some skateboarders just trying to have fun.
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MiesvanderDoh
metrobflo and arelli hit the nail on the head a young man by the name of ATM discovered this place probably 5 or 6 years ago, and every time more attention is brought to it more people go and destroy it The more attention that is brought to secret spots, the less of a secret they are. This often leads to destruction, or barricades, or security guards, etc. In the future it would be beneficial for skateboarding to keep these kind of things under wraps, so those who enjoy them can continue to
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