Barbarians Rule

Two months ago, Mayor Kay Barnes called a press conference at Barney Allis Plaza to identify a downtown enemy: skateboarders. Joined by representatives from the police department and Parks and Recreation personnel, Barnes reminded citizens that illegal skateboarders were chipping away at the city’s infrastructure. “I can’t imagine any one of us allowing this area to deteriorate,” she said without sarcasm.

Local media scoffed at her bizarre call to arms. Skateboard sympathizers demanded a more proactive approach to the “problem.” Even Barnes’ colleagues opted for more positive solutions. City Council members Ed Ford and Teresa Loar secured funding to pay for lighting at the city’s only skate park, in the Northland. Last week, Councilman and mayoral candidate Paul Danaher proposed a skateboarding ordinance. “Funny thing — it would make it legal,” Danaher says. “I was surprised when I found out our citizens could not skateboard downtown or in municipal parks.”

The ordinance that would open downtown to skateboarders reaches the council’s Neighborhood Development Committee this week. “I think skaters add to the diversity of the city,” Danaher says, adding that skaters give bored conventioneers something to do. “They go over to Barney Allis Plaza and watch these skateboarders perform.”

It seems the mayor’s skater-scolding has actually increased empathy for the city’s rolling outlaws.

But her skate-related visit to Barney Allis is hardly noteworthy when compared with the numerous professional skateboarders who’ve graced the city’s de facto downtown skate park. Nationally known for its unintentionally skater-friendly layout, Barney Allis has appeared in several skateboard videos and publications since its renovation in 1985.

Most recently, an edition of the skate video series 411 features pro skater and Christian role model Jamie Thomas visiting a Kansas City, Kansas, church for a demo, then retiring that night to some of his favorite local spots, the first of which is Barney Allis.

The most recent issue of TransWorld Skateboarding has an inside-cover advertisement for és shoes — the photo for which shows pro skater Eric Koston performing a rail slide down steps at the Kansas City Convention Center.

Locally produced videos, such as area skate shop Let It Ride’s What’s the Rush, show teams skating throughout Kansas City and Lawrence but invariably returning to the ample curbs and steps at Barney Allis.

But the site is perhaps best known for its role in Barbarians at the Gate, a mid-’90s video that follows pro skaters Josh Beagle and Heath Kirchart as they travel cross-country between demos.

Produced and directed by Spike Jonze — who would go on to direct Being John Malkovich and produce MTV’s Jackass — the video trails Beagle and Kirchart to Kansas City, where they’re flanked by area skaters excited to ride Barney Allis with their professional visitors.

Set to the Beatles’ “Revolution,” the segment begins with a shot of a potbellied security guard requesting backup. “Call five-o,” the nonplussed half-cop says into his walkie-talkie as the skaters roll in. The lone security guard stands his ground, though, and soon the skaters fall into two camps — those who provoke him by skating and those who stand by and watch his comedic tantrums: Guard swats at cameraman; guard kicks skateboard out of kid’s hand; guard speeds through crowd on motorized cart and mows down unmanned skateboard.

Police officers finally show up and disperse the crowd, but not before Barney Allis Plaza is etched into skate-video history.

But Barbarians at the Gate also captures another bit of Kansas City lore on film. “If you go to Barney Allis, there are two rails,” says local skater Adrian Frost. “One of the rails is bent, and the video shows how it got bent. It got bent on Josh Beagle’s nuts.”

Sure enough, an unfortunate Beagle is seen taking a handrail to the crotch so hard that the rail suffers noticeable damage. (Beagle’s injuries are left to the imagination.)

In September, Barnes and city personnel cited precisely that sort of damage (to rails, not groins) when calling for law-abiding citizens to help keep skaters out of downtown. “I would have no problem with skateboarding if it wasn’t damaging the infrastructure,” Barnes said. The mayor reminded citizens that skaters face $500 fines and possible jail time.

Critics thought her a tad outdated considering that skateboarding’s image has softened considerably in the past decade, partly because of the ambassadorship of longtime skater and current Apple Computers pitchman Tony Hawk. Now, cities such as Philadelphia and Louisville openly cater to skaters, building downtown skate parks with the intent of drawing mainstream and lucrative events such as the X-Games.

Naturally, Denver (Kansas City’s cool older cousin), completed its own 60,000-square-foot downtown skate park in July 2001. “That would bring so much money here,” says local skater Shawn Boyles, who recently visited the Denver park. “That would bring so much attention to downtown Kansas City. I don’t see much attention coming here, other than some conventions that no one knows about.”

Of course, the capital required to rival urban skate parks in Denver, Philadelphia or Louisville would probably require at least $1 million from a cash-strapped City Hall — an unlikely contribution even if city leaders were progressive enough to champion such an idea. But months before the mayor’s press conference, a Midtown nonprofit group was already working to get a skate park built in the urban core.

On November 10, the Westport Allen Center holds a skateboard rally at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 40th and Main. Organizer Jeffery Crockett collaborated with a number of Kansas City skaters in preparation for the event, which he hopes will “show a need, an awareness and a want” for an urban skate park downtown, on the riverfront or along the Troost corridor.

“You wouldn’t have to go the whole nine yards in the beginning,” Crockett says. “Maybe do something cool like some steps and a couple of these ramps and then later try to go into more of a solid, long-term thing.”

He hopes the mayor will show up and participate in the rally.

“It’s a great opportunity for her to find a positive in this and take the bull by the horns,” Crockett says. “I’d love to see her come down to our event with a helmet and some wheels and say, ‘OK, boys, let’s draw something up,’ and then sit down and talk with us.”