Kingshighway Skatepark Gets Nod in Popular Mechanics

courtesy of KHVT (Kingshighway Vigilante Tranny)

Build a skate park, change the world!

​OK, so they didn't find a cure for cancer or resolve the ongoing crisis in Libya. But the founders of the Kingshighway Skatepark still get a shot-out in the August issue of Popular Mechanics -- they're one of ten sets of Hometown Heroes honored for showing the rest of us "Ten Ways to Change the World (Starting in Your Own Backyard)."

The DIY skatepark -- winner of the RFT's 2010 "Best Place to Skate" award and written up in this blog post -- is honored for the way it turned "derelict land" into something positive for the community.

Founders Zac DelCortivo and Kyle Crandall earn special praise.
As Popular Mechanics explains,

The space beneath a city bridge can be a dumping ground and a magnet for crime and sketchy characters. The area under the Kingshighway Bridge in St. Louis was like that. But skateboarders Zac DelCortivo and Kyle Crandall saw opportunity there. They held fundraisers -- a concert, an art show and more -- to pay for materials...and started building a monster DIY skate park.

The story, sadly, isn't online -- but you can find the magazine on newsstands now. Other Hometown Heroes showing us slackers ways to change the world are Seattleites who opened a tool library, a Wisconsin dude who repairs old bikes and donates them to the needy and Jordan Grant of Columbia, Missouri, a National Guard member who served in Iraq and now builds computers and gives them away to people too poor to afford one.

And what have you done to change the world lately???