It wasn’t built to last, but it was fun while it lasted.

About five years ago, Jack Pankosky, 20, said, he was wandering around his Germantown neighborhood one night with friends. It was the kind of aimless journey suburban teenage boys make often. And there, in a clearing abutting a fire station, Methodist church and his dad’s backyard, Pankosky saw potential.

It was nothing more than about a 150-foot-long slab of concrete. But Pankosky and his friends saw a small haven for skateboarding.

“Me and my friends were sneaking out late and up until the sun was rising,” Pankosky said. “At that point, we were kind of getting into skating. It was like a no-brainer. Oh, we got to bring our skateboards back here.”

Over the next few years, Pankosky and others built obstacle after obstacle and created Hogspot DIY Skate Park, which also hosted concerts and welcomed neighbors near and far to join for a skate or just to hang out. It was the exact thing he and his young friends needed, Pankosky said.

“The idea of third spaces is really important,” Pankosky said, using a term for places that are neither work nor home. “I’ve always considered a skate park a third space — a place that’s free."

It was free — and accessible.

“Like, oh, I can’t bother my parents for a ride to the skate park, and I don’t have to worry about getting home when it’s dark late. There was one there, one you could skate to 10 minutes from your house.”

But, after more than three years of back-and-forth with officials from Montgomery County, Hogspot’s skate features were removed and the park was returned to a blank slab on Monday.

Who demolished the skate park isn’t clear.

But Pankosky said a Montgomery County Public Schools official approached him at the park in July 2022 and told him the schools owned the land and the park would have to be dismantled. He was told it was a liability issue.

A spokesperson for MCPS did not immediately reply to questions from The Banner about its involvement with and plans for the land.

The petition

Pankosky, a business administration major at Towson University, thought he could fly under the radar as the bureaucratic process sorted itself out and that he would have time to save the skate park. He organized a petition that more than 800 people signed.

“This skate park has genuinely brought a community of teens and young adults together,” Arya from Germantown wrote after signing the petition in September. “Friendships, relationships, and communities have been built through this skate park. It has a big influence through out Montgomery County, and we want to see it strive. Please keep it alive.”

But Pankosky was realistic about the possibility that his park was going to disappear one day.

He said he’s appreciative of the nearby skate parks in Olney, funded by Montgomery Parks, and Gaithersburg. But he stressed the value of more neighborhood parks like Hogspot to build community.

He made friends there. He got to spend more time with his dad building things for the park. And he learned about himself.

“Sometimes, I really wanted to go out there and work on something to clear my head and walk around like I’m doing something, I’m building something,” Pankosky says. “I used it really as an escape to get away from everything else.

“It always felt fleeting,” he added. “It really hurts to lose it now, but like there always was a sense that it wasn’t going to stick around forever. I feel very grateful for it.”