Union Square Park

The Daily Plant : Monday, February 11, 2008

Pro Snowboarders Hit The Rails

Photo by Malcolm Pinckney

On February 7, Parks & Recreation, the New York City Sports Commission and Aura360 hosted New York City’s second major pro snowboarding competition at the Union Square Street Sessions, presented by Jeep.

The world’s top professional riders, including last year’s champion Eddie Wall, Scotty Lago, Pat Moore and Lukas Magoon competed head-to-head in the northern part of Union Square Park for prize money totaling $30,000.

At this free event, pro snowboarding men and women showed off their skills on a customized urban rail fabricated at Mountain Creek Resort’s Jib Lab. New Yorkers watched Union Square Park become an extreme sports block party.

Union Square Street Sessions is the professional element and pre-event to Parks and Recreation’s Central Park Winter Jam, which took place on Saturday, February 9.

Union Square Street Sessions was sponsored by Jeep, Aura360, Red Bull, Oakley, Burton, Sunday River Resort, and Mountain Creek Resort.

TOM HUGHES APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF NEW MEDIA

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Tom Hughes as the Director of New Media. The New Media Division's primary responsibility is the maintenance and development of the Parks website, one of the largest and most feature-rich municipal websites in the world.

Tom arrived at New Media in July 2006 after 8 years as a professional web designer. Tom was promoted to Deputy Director after 11 months of hard work and dedication, and in this role has helped lead the division through one of the busiest periods of site development.

The New Media division is staffed with talented and experienced team of programmers, designers, and content managers. As Director, Tom will oversee the team's efforts on projects including: creating dynamic and informative homepages for our park and new cutting-edge, interactive maps as well as developing a new website for kids with educational and fun Parks-centric games and creating a fresh vision for the website's homepage.

Tom's accomplishments in New Media include spearheading a web accessibility initiative, implementing a system to provide detailed analysis of the website usage, and developing and successfully launching the Million Trees NYC website in conjunction with DoITT, City Hall, and New York Restoration Project.

Please join us in wishing Tom every success in his new role.

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803 – 1882)