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Photography by Brian Cummings

SK8 Liborius offers a haven for skaters in North St. Louis

For skaters seeking a place to shred, the abandoned church is the answer to their prayers.

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The starlings leave at sunrise and return at dusk. After St. Liborius Catholic Church closed and the homeless shelter moved out, the birds moved into this 133-year-old former sanctuary at the corner of Hogan and North Market, taking residence in the soaring, Gothic-inspired vaulting. In recent years, though, the avian creatures have shared the space with a different species: skateboarders, roller skaters, BMX riders, drone pilots, and creatives from the St. Louis region and beyond who’ve made a pilgrimage to the St. Louis Place neighborhood in North City. What used to be St. Liborius Church is now SK8 Liborius, a social club that caters to those who shred.

Dave Blum, Bryan Bedwell, and Joss Hay are among the project stewards who now own the building and have spent the past decade rehabbing the structure and transforming it into a must-see—and must-skate—attraction. At first, the men threw large parties to raise money for basic repairs. “Every time it rained, things got a little worse,” Blum says. “So we’d throw a rave or have a punk show, then use the money to go buy a whole bunch of mortar and bricks and start fixing stuff.”

Now, though, the group wants to go legit. Their nonprofit, Liborius Urban Art Studios, launched a GoFundMe drive to raise money to further repair the aging structure and turn part of the building into a community hub, “much like the Catholic church would have been,” Hay says. Ideally, Blum wants it to be a place where kids can not only ride a half pipe but also learn trades, such as welding and woodworking. The fundraiser had generated just shy of $50,000 at press time, but the group is aiming to bring in at least 10 times that amount.

Skating, of course, will remain the main draw. Where rows of pews used to sit, there is now a 40-foot vert ramp. Where Gothic ornaments once decorated the walls, there are now detailed and colorful graffiti portraits composed by the coolest artists. And where parishioners once congregated at the altar, there are now dozens of teens and young adults standing on a recent Sunday morning. Many of them are holding skateboards as they wait their turn to grind the rail and catch some air in this rejuvenated shrine to all things artful and extreme.

CHRIS GRINDZ

Chris Grindz didn’t believe skate tricks were real. Although he was an avid player of the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game when it was released in 1999, he was convinced that the rail grinds, board flips, and gravity-defying vert stunts were the products of pure fantasy. Then he got a board of his own. “I saw someone do a kickflip, and it registered from the Tony Hawk game,” says Grindz, 30. “I was like, You can do that?! A kickflip?! How do you do that?” He has picked up a few tricks over the past two decades. Grindz also met Hawk when he stopped in St. Louis in 2017 to announce the donation of a grant for the Peter Mathews Memorial Skate Garden in South City. “Hopefully,” Grindz says with a sweep of his arm, “Tony comes back and skates this place.”

JOSS HAY

Joss Hay moved from Scotland to St. Louis when his then-wife enrolled in a doctoral program at Washington University. He’s since remarried and remained in town because of the people and the opportunities that he found, becoming a partner in the SK8 Liborius project in 2016. Now, as he looks around the building, cataloging the work that has made it what it has become, Hay sees a promise fulfilled. “I said to my wife that I’ve never felt so empowered,” Hay says. “We did the right thing over the last few years to save this building and build a community here around us. We’re trying to get every last bit of juice out of this place.”

CASS HECHT

Never mind that Cass Hecht is merely 16 years old. He’s already one of the top up-and-coming skaters in the country, ranked No. 180 out of 18,033 Americans per the The Boardr, a global skateboarding organization that collects statistics and maintains a database of skateboarders across the world. “It’s pretty crazy to think that I’m ranked that high,” Cass says. “Two-hundred people is not many people.” He can thank his older sister, Caylee, for the boost. It was Caylee who introduced him to skating when he was 8 years old. The two would go to Westhoff Plaza Skate and BMX Complex in O’Fallon, where Caylee first taught Cass how to balance on his board and later how to go down ramps. Within a couple of years, Cass was comfortable dropping in on his own. Now he’s a regular at both SK8 Liborius and Maplewood Skate Park, constantly adding new tricks to his repertoire. “I want to be more consistent,” he says, “and try to keep a good skate face and not stress in competitions.”

MADISON WEINER

In the two years since Madison Weiner started skateboarding, she has accumulated a lengthy—and gnarly—list of injuries. There was the time she dislocated an elbow while bracing for a backward fall on a half pipe. There was the day she thought she broke both of her ankles during an awkward landing. Oh, and then there was the time she face-planted and lost a tooth. “Injuring myself to the point where I can’t skate is like torture,” Weiner says, “because it’s the one thing I love to do.” Most days, Weiner is one of the only women skateboarding at the city’s parks. “Every time I see girls at the skate park, I approach them because they get it,” Weiner says. “Having other girls around also pushes you to try things. If I see another girl doing a trick, it gives me this sense of encouragement to try something of my own.”

KELAINE PATTERSON

A decade’s worth of full-contact roller derby competition made Kelaine Patterson feel like an advanced skater—or at least a skater who was willing to try just about anything. Ramp skating? Easy. Or so the 30-year-old thought. “My first time on the ramp was terrifying,” Patterson says. “I would just kind of throw myself in, injure myself, and be like, ‘I’m never coming back.’” But Patterson (a.k.a Loki) did come back, again and again, learning how to navigate the layout of the ramp on roller skates and drop in like a pro. “Ramp inspired me to overcome my fears,” Patterson says. “Now, whenever I think I’m going to be bad at something, I think, You were bad at ramp when you started. But you overcame that, right? Skating, especially ramps, encourages you to be brave in a lot of ways. Not just here, when you’re on your skates, but in your everyday life.”

AVA VERHOFF

Fifteen-year-old Ava Verhoff wants to make a living like this, rolling up and down vert ramps, winding through street courses, twisting and twirling as she spins her wheels and lands her favorite tricks. “I know it isn’t that big yet, but I would love to help build roller-skating and make it where people can actually make a living as a professional roller skater,” Verhoff says. She’s already on her way. Verhoff boasts a handful of sponsorships, including TSG pads, Wildbones sliders, and High Rollers Skate Shop, among others. Late last summer, Verhoff embarked upon a 365-day skating challenge, meaning she wakes every morning intent on either mastering a new stunt, honing the tricks she knows, or learning a new technique. “I want to be able to do all of the tricks,” Verhoff says.

MIA PORCELLI

Quadskater Mia Porcelli couldn’t shake the nerves. The first time that Porcelli (a.k.a Po) dropped in on a ramp, they were almost too scared to try. But with a crowd of skaters clapping and rooting for them, Porcelli found the courage to follow through. The support was so invigorating, Porcelli used it to propel up and over a street course obstacle for the first time without losing balance. “Everyone was cheering me on—all the skateboarders were pounding their boards—and it was a really great experience for my first time here,” Porcelli says. “That was within a month of me starting to skate, so it felt good to get such overwhelming support, especially as someone who has not received a lot of support in my life.”

MARIE NICHOLSON

Marie Nicholson stopped scrolling when she saw the church. While thumbing through her Instagram feed earlier this year, Nicholson was moved by the sight of the ramps and rails decorating the interior of this 133-year-old sanctuary. She spent hours flipping through pictures and videos of fellow skater girls navigating the course and allowed her mind to wander. I have to go to this place—it’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, she thought. So she grabbed her skates, tossed them in her car, and made the three-and-a-half-hour drive from her home in Burlington, Iowa, to St. Louis. Although the 27-year-old is still new to roller-skating, having picked up the hobby less than two years ago, she’s been eager to learn what she can. Nicholson joined a derby team in Iowa and has made multiple trips to St. Louis. “I tell all of my friends about this skate park church in St. Louis: You gotta help donate because it’s amazing.”