INDIANAPOLIS — A new skatepark on the east side of Indianapolis is open, and it’s the efforts of advocates, the local skateboarding community, family and friends of 20-year-old Ethan Williams that have helped push it forward with the help of city officials.
The new Willard Park skate park, located about a mile east of downtown on Washington Street, is now open and free to the public for skateboarding, scootering, and in-line skating. Local skatepark advocates shared that it was the first new skatepark in town to be built in about two decades.
“Skateboarding has really taken off since then,” said Tim Devlin, community organizer for Indy Skatepark Advocates. “I think with this park being more accessible to public transport and bike paths and stuff like that, we’re going to see a lot more people in this park.”
What this park will offer the community is exactly what Ethan Williams always hoped to see built in Indianapolis. It was on a trip to New York, which he had dreamed of for as long as his family can remember, that he was randomly shot while standing outside his Airbnb in Brooklyn.
This trip was supposed to be a chance for Ethan and a few friends to take a break from the fall semester, skate, take pictures and shoot movies, but it turned into the Williams family’s worst nightmare. . His case remains unsolved more than a year and a half later, despite his family’s continued efforts to get answers.
After Ethan’s passing, people shared stories with Jason Williams, Ethan’s father, and his family about the impact Ethan left on them at a memorial service attended by thousands. .
“All of these stories of her positivity and her love and compassion for people of all kinds were pretty remarkable,” Jason said. “He was very interested in people treating each other well. He was bothered by the violence in the world, so it was very ironic that he lost his life to gun violence.
Shortly after Ethan’s death, Jason was approached by Ethan’s friends and members of the local skateboarding community, asking if they could try to get the new skatepark “in the heart of the city” of Indianapolis in Willard Park be dedicated and named after Ethan.
Although Jason doesn’t know about it, he said he immediately started making calls to see if they could get things done. The campaign quickly received support from Mayor Joe Hogsett, skateboarder Tony Hawk, the NFL Referees Union and other organizations.
“Basically, we started putting everything together, the mayor helped us through the paperwork, and the next thing we knew we were on board with the skatepark,” Jason said.
Although the skatepark was not named after Ethan, it was named after William Willard, founder of the Indiana School for the Deaf. Jason said he felt the result was gorgeous and even featured a grind rail that said “Indianapolis” in sign language.
The park also honors Ethan, who was a strong advocate for helping Indianapolis youth and ending youth violence. While a founding member of the Mayor’s Youth Leadership Council while in high school, Jason said his son had a vision to improve and expand urban spaces to bring the community together.
“He understood that a lot of kids didn’t grow up playing basketball, you know, and traveling baseball and stuff. They just had everything they had in their neighborhood. He was an advocate for spaces urban,” Jason said.
This new community space does just that, providing a centralized space for the community to skate safely, while bringing together like-minded people. Ethan believed that if people could come together around a common interest, regardless of background, they could become friends.
“Knowing that it’s here today and people who’ve never met are meeting and hanging out because of Ethan is pretty neat,” Jason said. “I know he would like us to do something positive in the aftermath of the tragedy.”
Combining his love for skateboarding with education and literature, the park’s developers incorporated a ramp designed like a book, paying homage to Ethan.
“There is a part of the skatepark that is in memory of our friend Ethan who passed away. The book. We designed the book to represent Ethan’s love for reading and education,” Devlin said. “Every time we see the book we’ll think of Ethan and it’s even better that he’s here, he’s skateable, because I think that’s something Ethan would have been really happy to see.”
Jason Williams and his family agree.
“The piece that kind of represents my son is the books because he was a lover of books, movies and literature,” he said.
The community of Englewood and the city of Indianapolis received a grant to build the Willard Park skatepark, located near downtown. It was Hunger Skateparks who designed and built the new community space. The Bloomington-based design and build company is owned and operated by skateboarders.
“We actually built a bigger park than we thought we could, which was amazing,” Jason said.
Hunger Skateparks shared that the team learned it would be larger than originally planned and worked with local advocates to develop a more balanced design. This design included the book for Ethan.
“We want to thank Ethan’s family and friends for being so supportive of the project and for becoming skatepark advocates in the process,” the Hunger Skateparks team wrote.
In addition to the family’s efforts, it was Tim Devlin and Indy Skatepark Advocates who worked tirelessly to volunteer on this project for three years.
“I think nowadays the more things you can give to the kids you know, give them some kind of gratification, they’re working towards something, progressing — I think skateboarding is like that,” Devlin said.
Devlin has been skateboarding for over 25 years and passed on her passion for the sport to her daughter, who also skates. He said the skatepark is a perfect opportunity for the kids to hang out.
Prior to the construction of the Willard Park skatepark, the Major Taylor skatepark, nearly 6 miles from downtown Indy, was the most recently built, and that was in 1999. This will be the “first real” skatepark on the loop 465, the defenders said.
Their hope, along with the Williams family, is that people will respect the new land and treat it with care for years to come, so that countless people can enjoy it. Above all, they hope it will encourage people to connect with their neighbors in the community.
“Ethan, he loved people. He loved the community. My wife is a school counselor, I’m an educator, so we’ve spent our lives raising our kids to look out for other kids,” Jason said. “Knowing that this will be here for a long time and it will bring people together, it will give the kids in the community a place to hang out, it’s just – it’s phenomenal.”
A ribbon cutting with the municipal authorities is tentatively scheduled for the end of June.
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