About 20 kids of various ages stand waiting for their turn to take on the paint-splattered concrete barriers that are their pleasure and their pain. Some of them sail in slow motion across the broken glass minefield that surrounds the so-called legal walls near Village Gate on North Goodman Street. Trains chugging along the nearby tracks drown out the words of most of the skaters' conversations, but you can still hear the tinny zip of skateboard wheels as they glide over the uneven terrain, and then leave it for the air. June 21 was National Go Skateboarding Day, and except for the wind, the weather was ideal.

The skaters congratulate one another on landed tricks, whistling when a rider isn't thrown off his board while attempting to push it up the slanted sides of the abandoned barriers. They don't seem concerned with much else. "I skate because it's fun, and I have a lot of friends through it," says Marlon Lindsay, 16. He refers to the legal walls as the city's "secret skate park," and he says he doesn't know anyplace else without security waiting to kick them out.

On Go Skateboarding Day, the group at the legal walls was asked to leave. And they did. But the problem is, they had no place to go. While skate parks exist in several suburbs, inside Rochester city limits there are few options for skaters who want to break out their boards and explore their hobby - for some, their passion - in peace. For a community that lives by the code "skate or die," that means skaters are forced to take to the streets at night or try tricks on private property until the city builds a space that suits their needs. But some area skaters argue that even that might not be the best solution.

Although it is perfectly legal for skateboarders over the age of 13 to use city streets like any bicyclist, there are specific public areas where skateboarding is prohibited by the City Code. No skating in public parks within the city's central business district; no skating downtown near the east side of the Sibley Building and the Riverside Convention Center; no skating in or around several downtown parking garages. In short, no skating in many of the places with interesting terrain that might attract hardcore skateboarders.

But that doesn't stop many skaters; they prefer cruising downtown streets at night, avoiding the hazards of security guards and business owners.

One evening last summer Kyle Sigwald, 21, had just finished his 12-hour day at the restaurant he works at and took advantage of the cooler midnight air to try a few moves. He skated the smoothed-over ramp - what he calls a "piano ledge" - that leads to an adjacent parking lot outside of a dry cleaning business on Monroe Avenue. His shirt blew behind him like the sail on a speeding boat, until he tumbled to the ground. He raised his shirt to expose a red scrape of torn skin extending across his lower back. "It doesn't hurt, I swear," he says. Immediately he took back to the air, the slap of his board on metal ledges echoing in the neon-lit night. "I'm drooling I love it so much," he says, sweat seeping through his clothes.

The property owner might complain that what Sigwald was doing is trespassing. But Sigwald says that that the thrill of skating comes from freedom, not rebellion. "No one tells you what to do. If you're standing on a skateboard, you're a skater," he says.

In other words, skateboarding is a way of life, and it's a lifestyle that often starts early. Joseph Hernandez and Mike Nichols, 14, and Derek Schuler, 13, trudge through a Goodman Street parking lot, loaded with book bags and boards. They've just skated "graffiti city," as Schuler refers to the legal walls, and are in search of a new spot. Schuler acts as the spokesperson for the trio, and explains why they spend their afternoons in search of a few uninterrupted minutes on their skateboards: "It's fun. It keeps us out of trouble, and stops us from stealing or doing drugs. Basically, I do it because my Mom doesn't want me hanging around the house."

They say nobody kicked them out of the colorful "park," but are all in favor of a downtown skate park because they often get kicked out of spots around Rochester. "But I've been skating the streets since I was 5," says Nichols. 

One of the places local skateboarders regularly hang out is Krudco on Howell Street, considered by many skaters to be the hub of the Rochester skating scene. Owned and operated since 1994 by Aaron Costa, himself a skateboarder, the shop sells specialty skateboards and gear; earlier this year Costa opened the women-oriented skate shop Holler on Titus Avenue. Krudco has passed between generations as not only a place to talk to and meet fellow skaters, but also as a suitable spot to put boards to work. The corner of Monroe and Howell Street is often flooded with skaters who endure the annoyed catcalls from speeding traffic.

Costa says that the skating scene in and around Rochester has grown tremendously in the last decade. "There are so many different kids, different races, rich kids, poor kids, punk rock kids, hip-hop kids. And they all talk junk and make fun of each other. Religion, race, size - nothing matters but skateboarding," he says.

Chris Hogan-Roy is a veteran skateboarder and a media editor for Krudco. He argues that a lot of the kids who hang out in and around the store would be in the streets if not for skating.

Costa says that Rochester police have become more lenient of skateboarding youth because they see kids actually doing something. But Hogan-Roy counters that skaters still have to fight against negative stereotypes. Even though skating is more popular than it has ever been, crossing over into the mainstream through shows on MTV and ESPN, the X-Games, and in video games, some non-skaters still view skateboarders as a threat.

"They think that we are drug dealers and junkies, and that's what we attract," he says. "So right away, they're against the idea of a park. But that's not true. That's not true at all. It's a big stigma that skateboarding can't seem to shake, and I don't know why."

"We're not all jackasses," Hogan-Roy says. "We're not trying to make trouble and destroy stuff. We're trying to live our lives and make ourselves happy."

A skate park in the city has been discussed, says Commissioner of Recreation and Youth Services Charles Reaves. "At some point, we'd love to do it," he says. "I've been wanting one for quite some time. Our standpoint is, we want to give the community something new and creative."

Reaves says that although discussions are contained to his department for now, the possibility of constructing parks at recreation centers in the northwest and southeast sides of the city has been floated. But Reaves lists of a series of factors that would need to be addressed. How would the park be monitored? Where would equipment be stored during the off-season? Would kids and families be willing to invest in helmets, safety pads, bikes, blades, and boards for such a short season?

Shawn Dahl, operator of local skateboarding press Rustbelt, thinks they might. "These kids will go anywhere to skate a decent park. There are 10 parks from the border on up to Toronto. And there are tons of studies that show that kids involved with something, with somewhere to go, keep out of trouble."

Veteran skater Hogan-Roy agrees. "Skateboarders want skate parks everywhere, as much as there are basketball and tennis courts," he says. "We shouldn't have to pay to be able to skate, and we shouldn't need monitors or lifeguards."

Monitoring is one of the concerns that skaters have with a city-built skate park. Krudco's Costa admits that even if a park was built, he would still prefer to skate around the city at night. "A park would be just someplace to put skaters, and tell them they can't skate anywhere else," he says.

Skaters are especially wary of the idea of a park built without input from skaters themselves. "Webster Park is an OK skate park, but it was built by the P.E. teacher who did a little research," says Hogan-Roy. "If you're a skateboarder, like we are, you go out and you've seen good skate parks."

He mentions FDR park in Philadelphia as an example; the skate park was initiated by a crew of skateboarders who started to pour their own concrete under one of the city's bridges. The city recognized that skaters built it on their own, and instead of fighting it, they allowed the park to remain. It continues to have a reputation as one of the country's most reputable parks, especially because of the work put in by the skating community.

With a city park a long way off - if in the offing at all - that leaves skaters with suburban parks in Brockport, Canandaigua, Gates, Webster, and an indoor park, Xdreams, in East Rochester. Or on the streets and private property under cover of night, where they try to land tricks without out being chased off or caught. But for some in the skating community, that no-rules lifestyle is attractive.

"Every skateboarder hates it and loves it," Hogan-Roy says of skating. "It is everything to them - travel, new friends. It's a community. That's why we get angry when we're looked at as derelicts. People yell at us, cops yell at us, and they don't even understand what we're doing.... I guess when you sit on your skateboard and try all day to land something, where most people would fall on their ass and say ‘I'm never going to do this again,' that drive is applicable to life."