PLANS TO PATCH THE PANTS and RE-OPENING

BALTIMORE MD (July 23^rd 2008) – On Monday, July 21^st between the hours of 12am and 7am, a Baltimore City forklift razed “The Pants Skate Ramp”, one of the Artscape sculptural pieces, which was a part of the “Outdoor Lounge”, a collection of experimental public furnishings installed throughout the grassy areas on Mt. Royal Avenue.

The Pants Skate Ramp was set to stay at its Mt. Royal location for a year as part of a winning design chosen to be built for Artscape by curator Michael Benevento of the Current Gallery. The Pants Skate Ramp selected out of a handful of projects to be erected for this year's Artscape the ramp was a created by Jordan Bernier and Steve Santillan, and was built by a team of six artists, including Alex Ebstein, John Bohl, Sara Seidman, and Elie Sollins.

The City has claimed that the removal of the ramp was accidental but the arts community, skateboarding community and especially the artists who built the ramp are upset about the destruction of their piece.

“I'm confident that the partial destruction was an accident, and while that doesn't fix the problem, the challenge of putting the pants back together has generated a huge amount of support from the community.” - Jordan Bernier

Regardless of whether this was an unfortunate accident or a City grudge against skateboarding enthusiasts in Baltimore. The ramp designers have already begun rebuilding their installment and hope to have it complete in the coming weeks.

The Skatepark of Baltimore a local non-profit organization whose mission is to facilitate the construction of a public, concrete, destination skatepark in Baltimore was disappointed by the loss of a unique, well built, and positive artistic addition to the public landscape and has offered to help with a grand re-opening event.

RAMP RE-OPENING 6PM SUNDAY JULY 27TH!

PLUS VEGAN BAKESALE BENEFIT!