The fall of 2002 the city closed LOVE Park for a renovation to add features that would reduce the "skateability" of the Park. City youths hosted a massive protest against the renovation.

Their second powerful argument for rejecting the new skate site and the funds to make it fit their purposes is that iconic skate spaces are found, indeed taken. Such places are not offered and certainly not designed.

And yet within the last decade, the Southbank Centre got planning permission on behalf of the skateboarders to improve the skateability of the existing space.

Since its inception, the park has undergone subtle revisions, including the addition of a brick-layered bank accompanied by small ledges that skaters can roll up to, grind, and stall on. But it's next, grander phase calls on Seattle-based Grindline to provide a new master plan for the park to maximize so-called "skateability" and overall aesthetic appeal.

I spotted a couple of twenty-something year-old skaters ollieing off a ramp next to the massive bronze equestrian statue of Belgium's King Albert I, which stands between two skateable sets of stone steps…

While the skatepark is not huge and some skaters might want more vert than is on offer, what is great about it is how it's almost seamlessly integrated into the surrounding streetscape with its open plan and discreet skateability.