Snowscraper Ramp Graces NYC Skyline

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• January 16 2009
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In a season where large scale events are falling like the Amazon’s trees before the chainsaws of sponsorship pullout, the Red Bull Snowscraper, which is going up on NYC’s Lower East Side for the Big Air In The Big Apple as part of the City’s Park Department’s Winter Jam NYC, is a beacon of hope rising in Gotham with a killer design.

The 90 foot structure is being built by Snow Park Technologies’s Frank Wells and Mike Bettera and will feature a booter to an 80 foot-long spine.

With a purse of $100k the big guns are coming out to get down in the Big Apple. The confirmed riders are Shaun White, Travis Rice, Pat Moore, Eero Ettala, Dustin Craven, Kevin Pearce, Mikkel Bang, Danny Davis,  Kohei Kubo, Kazuhiro Kakubo, Terje Haakonsen, Andreas Wiig,  Torstein Horgmo,  Jake Blauvelt, Greg Bretz,  Bjorn Leines and JJ Thomas.

Here’s some details on the event from the New York Times:

In East River Park on the Lower East Side, construction began Monday on the Snowscraper, a structure that officials are calling the largest ever built for a special event in the New York City parks. It is being built by a sporting events company called Aura360 and financed by Red Bull, the Austria-based energy drink maker known for its marketing around extreme sports.

The 90-foot ramp will be a centerpiece of the Parks Department’s Winter Jam NYC, a two-day event scheduled for Feb. 5 and 7.

Professional snowboarders like Shaun White, Pat Moore and Travis Rice are to take part in a Big Air in the Big Apple Pro Snowboarding Competition from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Feb. 5. Other athletes will take part in a Future of Snowboarding Invitational from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Feb. 7.

Other elements of the Winter Jam include a 70-foot snow flume for sledding and an ice-climbing wall.

The ramp is being built by Frank Wells and Mike Bettera of Snow Park Technology. The Parks Department says it “allows riders multiple angles of trajectory — frontside or backside, landing on either the right or left side of the massive 45-degree spine. Additionally, the ramp design will allow spectators to get up close and personal, giving fans an opportunity to experience the action first hand as the riders spin roughly four stories into the sky.”

In case it doesn’t actually snow, no worries. The snowmaking for the Winter Jam began on Wednesday evening. The snow was “being made especially for the 90-foot snowboarding ramp,” said Trish Bertuccio, a Parks Department spokeswoman. (Presumably, the ramp can also accommodate actual, as opposed to manufactured, snow.)