The Secret Concrete Garden

Sepi “Neon” Shokri stands on her roller skates in the doorway of a warehouse and scans the parking lot. “There are only six key holders and the cell phone reception inside is bad so I come out here every so often to check for people,” Neon says. After a few minutes a car pulls up. A man rolls down the window and shouts out: “Is this the skate shack?” “Yup,” says Neon. “Okay, I found you!”

Heading back into the warehouse, located a half-hour north of Madison, we walk — and skate — down a cement ramp, through two doorways covered with plastic sheeting and past hundreds of pallets piled high with seed bags. Tucked into the back corner of a huge, dank room we find the Shred Shed, a hidden indoor skate park founded by Neon.

Music plays from a small speaker as 15 to 20 people wearing roller skates, helmets and pads socialize and take turns on equipment like a half-pipe, quarter-pipe and a rail. As we walk up a group of three skaters hold hands in a line to assist the middle skater who is practicing going down the small ramp of the quarter pipe. The novice makes it down the ramp and the others cheer.

While Neon is giving a tour of the space, she stops mid-sentence and yells “Yeah, Gorge!” as she notices a friend drop into the half-pipe for the first time.

McKinzie “Gorge” Myszka later explains: “I couldn’t stand on skates last August. I tried that three times on the half pipe a month ago and ate it.”

According to Neon, this is exactly why she wanted her own skate park. “The mission of the Shred Shed is to create a positive, joyful and supportive skate park for people of all ages, skill levels, genders and races,” Neon says. “There can be a weird vibe at skate parks and it can be intimidating — I just want to encourage people to get on skates because it’s such a happy thing.”

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