In Detroit and four other cities around the world today, thousands have dropped everything, grabbed their skateboards, and taken to the streets.
This year, Detroit was selected as a site for the ninth annual skateboarding event called Wild in the Streets. The event is similar to Critical Mass, but on skateboards instead of bicycles, and it is being held today—international Go Skateboarding Day.
According to the event's website,
"The goal of Wild in the Streets is to build community and raise awareness of skateboarding and the needs of skateboarders, and to unite skateboarders through a central cause."
Participants were told by the organizing skateboard company, Emerica, to meet up today at noon in Hart Plaza to begin a 5-mile mass trip around the city. In a media release, the company wrote that participants could find the secret itinerary and directions for the ride once there.
The event will culminate tonight in a benefit concert at Royal Oak’s Modern Skate Park to raise money for Power House Production's Ride It Sculpture Park. The sculpture park, being constructed at East Davison St. and Klinger, near the east end of Davison Highway in Detroit, will serve as a skate park in which the artworks form obstacles for riders.
This year’s event is marked by the death of Ryan Gaynier, a well-known 21-year-old skater from Trenton who died in a car accident last weekend.
Past Wild in the Streets sites include Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Vancouver, Tampa, Montreal, London, Madrid and Los Angeles.
-Elaine Ezekiel, Michigan Radio Newsroom
