Monday, May 2, 2005
Photo by Rachel Seymour
Nick Haehl, Free State High School sophomore, helps his friend, Matt Callan, Free State High School sophomore, pick out a board for his skateboard Thursday afternoon at Midwest Skateboarding, 836 Iowa St. Haehl, who has been skating for three years, heard about the Midwest Skateboarding after “Let It Ride,” a skateboard shop previous located on 9th and New Hampshire streets, closed last November.
Zack Gould and other Lawrence skateboarders don’t have to leave town to buy skateboarding equipment anymore.
Less than a year after Let It Ride, Lawrence’s only skateboard shop, closed, Dan Salazar rolled in with his own, Midwest Skateboarding, at 836 Iowa St. For Gould, a skater for four years, it’s a relief.
“It’s good to have someplace,” he said as he applied grip to the top of a sun-yellow colored board he recently bought from Midwest Skateboarding. “Not having a shop during the winter brought our morale down.”
This is the second Midwest Skateboarding location that Salazar has opened. Two years ago he opened one in Topeka. Although Salazar wanted to open a shop in Lawrence, he didn’t want to move in on what he saw as Let It Ride’s turf.
“It was one of my favorite shops to go to,” Salazar said. “You just don’t move in. I know a lot of different people wouldn’t care, but to me, you respect them because they’ve been here forever.”
For J.P. Redmon, Manhattan junior, the move in was right on time.
“It was rough for a while,” Redmon, a skater of 15 years, said. “It’s always crappy when kids had to order through mail order. We really needed a shop, and he stepped in at the right time.”
Salazar, 22, opened his first skate shop in Garden City when he was 20 from money he saved from in what he described as the “worst” job.
“I was in the shipping department of a slaughterhouse, and I’m a vegetarian,” he said.
Salazar said he wouldn’t do as well with a different kind of store.
“I like this because it’s kind of like the people I roll with,” Salazar said. “If I wasn’t doing this, I would be at the skate park with the same people.”
He moved his original operation to Topeka because he wanted to be closer to Lawrence and because Topeka has two skateboarding parks. Salazar chose the Iowa street location because rent is there is cheaper than downtown and it’s proximity to the Lawrence skate park at Centennial Park, 600 Rockledge.
“I couldn’t even find a place that was twice the amount here,” Salazar said. “Plus we’re a pretty ‘core’ shop.”
Core shop meaning that Midwest Skateboarding is more of a hardware store for skateboarding, selling wheels, boards and grips.
It’s a good location for younger skaters who don’t have cars to have a nearby skate shop to buy equipment when their stuff breaks, Redmon said.
Another benefit of the location, Salazar said he realized, was his next door neighbor: Domino’s Pizza.
“I do find myself spending more money on a pizza joint than I ever had before,” he said.
— Edited by Azita Tafreshi
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