America's Top 10 Skate Parks

If opinions are like assholes, then asking skaters to name the best skateboard park in America is begging for a shit storm. Skate parks, like skateboarding itself, is whatever the individual makes of it. For some, you could do no better than a seamless 14-foot-high vert ramp, Sean White and Tony Hawk spinning in unison, their X-Games laminates fluttering in the breeze. For others, a three-foot mini is the Promised Land. The kids want ledges and rails; the old guys want pools (but not too steep); the surfers want banks; and the Slipknot kids just want somewhere to hang out, smoke and look miserable. Still others —including some skate park builders —have a "build it and they will come" outlook, even if it means the only people who come to their 20-foot, kinked full-pipes are the city maintenance dudes when they have to remove a dead cat. Some people just want a red curb. But since Playboy.com asked for Thrasher Magazine's list of the top 10 skate parks in America, we get to make up the criteria:

1. Concrete beats wood.
2. It's not street skating or transition skating, it's skating.
3. No cops; no entry fees; no mandatory safety gear; no babysitters.