Skaters push to reopen Bethpage park

No one has skated the rails or hit any kick flips at Bethpage Community Park’s skate park in more than two years.

The Town of Oyster Bay closed the community park as a precaution in January 2024 as investigators cleaned up environmental contamination at the former Grumman Aerospace property. The company spent years dumping toxic chemicals in a section of the 18-acre site.

Skaters say they were blind-sided by the closure and don’t have another spot to skate in the town. They wonder if a new skate park will open or if another will take its place.

Dan Sterling, 39, said he grew up in Bethpage and frequently skateboarded in a King Kullen parking lot. When the Bethpage skate park opened in the early 2010s, he said “everybody was incredibly happy that we had somewhere to go.”

He formed an online petition, "SAVE the Bethpage skatepark!" Sterling and others want to ensure the park will either be reopened or rebuilt after the long-delayed remediation concludes.

"There's been no commitment from them about the skate park," Sterling said of Oyster Bay officials. 

The town hired LiRo Engineers this summer to come up with a conceptual design for a new Bethpage Community Park. 

Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino, at the town's August board meeting, said the priority is cleaning up the park. A new layout has yet to be finalized.

“We are continuing to seek input from the community on the future of Bethpage Park while fighting for the highest possible level of cleanup," Saladino said in a statement, which did not address the status of the skate park. "The good news is that we are making progress in negotiations with Grumman to fund a new park — one that our residents and the entire Bethpage community deserve.”

It's not clear when the new park will be built. Oyster Bay and Northrop Grumman remain embroiled in litigation over the speed and thoroughness of the environmental cleanup.

Grumman Aerospace, Northrop Grumman's predecessor, spent years dumping toxic waste in the park's ballfield section, which borders the closed skate park. Grumman donated land for the park to the town in 1962. The town closed the ballfield area in 2002. 

Oyster Bay town code restricts skateboarding at its parks or beaches. That forces skateboarders to search for public facilities outside  of town, Sterling said. 

“There is no authorized place for skateboarding specifically in the Town of Oyster Bay,” Sterling said.

Matt Weitman, 25, of North Baldwin, said the Bethpage skate park was a home away from home. He said he felt “heartbroken” when it closed. Sometimes he’d spend so much time at the park that he’d only break for food at the nearby ice rink before hopping back on his skateboard.

“Everybody just loves this skate park so much,” Weitman said.

Chad Caruso, of Farmingdale, has skated across the country twice and advocates for skate parks on Long Island. He said it's important to raise the concern of skaters in the early stages of planning for the new park.

"We shouldn't lose our park that we had there," Caruso said.

The park was a haven for some and should be reopened or rebuilt, he said. 

"Every skate park that you go to has a core group of local people that are like family there," Caruso said. "They had a loyal community."

By Joseph Ostapiuk

joseph.ostapiuk@newsday.com@OstapiukJ