The 28-day, 1,705 mile adventure involving a skatepark floating down the Mississippi River known as Red Bull Mississippi Grind set sail on September 9th culminating with a three day celebration in New Orleans where the final ceremony was dedicated to Red Bull giving the skate structure to the city of New Orleans to help provide a skate park to the city.

All was going according to plan as plenty of guest pros including Luis Tolentino, Joey Brezinski, Ronnie Creager and Converse pro Kenny Anderson displayed their talents as the barged floated down the river. All was great, until the time came to donate the park to the city of New Orleans.

The main plan for the park was put in place at City Park, the largest park in New Orleans. But according to an interview with ESPN John Hopper, the park's chief development officer, is one of those who ultimately decided against installing a Red Bull park at this location.

"The offer was very nice and genuine. 'You want a skate park? We have one floating down the river.' What better place than the biggest public park in New Orleans? But it wasn't just the materials," Hopper explains. "We would have to get the site ready. Utilities. Bathrooms. Fence. And when we started putting all the numbers to paper, we quickly got into the multiple six-figures."

Hopper went on to say "Given the unfortunate fact that there is not a skate park in New Orleans proper, we know there is going to be a lot of demand for it. So we thought we would, quite frankly, be ill-serving the public," Hopper says. "The Red Bull park simply would not be big enough to meet demand. Then you have crowds and accidents."

It's difficult to understand why a city with plenty of skateboarders would not want to have some where for people to skate? Even though it may be small it's still something to skate.



One reader responded to an article in the New Orleans Times Picayune by saying "... I'm 32, have a "real" job, and still skate everyday. One of the people i skate with a few times a week is a doctor and for those of you worrying about the cost, the city doles out tons of money for basketball courts, soccer fields, hell even frisbee golf courses, and not one skatepark. This park is being donated for free by Red Bull, and you are still complaining about the menial cost of installing it? Maybe some of you people haven't noticed, but there are THOUSANDS of kids skateboarding in New Orleans, and MILLIONS skateboarding across the country."

He has a great point, but the city insist that though the park was donated for free, they are estimating the cost to range from $235,000 to $300,000, a sum that could decimate the budget for Phase I of the project. A skate park advocate for New Orleans Joey O'Mahoney says "The Red Bull skate park is prefabricated and doesn't have hybrid terrain," he said. "Every skate park should be unique, and New Orleans should have a world-class skate park that really fits the city."

For now, a simple gesture from Red Bull is proving to be more complicated than first thought. Let this be a lesson in life that nothing is as easy as it should be, even in a city known as the Big EASY. The skatepark has been disassembled and is being stored at the old brake tag station on North Jefferson Davis Parkway.

Stay tuned as this battle is not over.