Liz Dennerlein

@lizdennerlein

Walking past the historic Carousel on the Asbury Park boardwalk, the sound of drills echoes throughout.

Inside, there's plywood everywhere, wires running loose and crew working tirelessly late into the night.

Curious heads peek inside, wondering what is finally coming to the Casino building.

"I like watching people try to guess. They say, 'Is that a theater? A Starbucks?' " Lou Cuccaro, one of the advisers at Asbury Park Skateboard Foundation, said. "We tell them, 'No, it's a (skate) bowl,' and they're just so impressed."

After nearly nine months of planning, Forth Union Skate and Culture Organization at the Carousel in the Casino building will officially open to the public Sunday. Forth Union features a 3½-foot mini bowl, which has previously been housed at Mountain Creek resort in Vernon.

The temporary skate bowl has been donated by Red Bull, which has a partnership with developer Madison Marquette.

There will be free skate from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. A kids-only free skate is from 10 a.m. to noon. All ages are welcome after noon.

Carrie Turner, general manager of Madison Marquette, said the structure is not permanent. She estimates it could be in the Carousel at the Casino building for one to two years.

RELATED: "The Fourth Phase" premiere party at Paramount Theatre

Derek Rinaldi, an adviser at Asbury Park Skateboard Foundation, said the bowl at the Carousel is completely different from the one that was at Mountain Creek in Vernon.

"That was just a bowl with narrow platforms around it. It was kind of jammed up against the wall," Rinaldi said. "(At the Carousel,) every square inch is skateable."

With the help of Madison Marquette, they designed a bowl with a wide platform, they added stairs, railings and hubbas (or ledges).

The space will be more than just a spot for skaters. Throughout the year, there will be live bands, artists and fundraisers.

"(The idea) is to be able to have one spot where we can have interchanging people come and go ... that’s the whole idea behind skate culture organizations — to have a fluid group of skaters, artists and musicians," Rinaldi said.

No boundaries

The entire concept behind the Forth Union brand is to bring the skate scene back into the Asbury Park community.

Since the structure is only temporary, Turner said they wanted to create an idea rather than a place.

Tim Ziegler, 27, is the graphic designer at Madison Marquette, and the man behind the Forth Union image.

"The challenge that was given to me was find out a way to combine the skate community, the art community, and the music community," Ziegler said.

After spending time researching the different communities, Ziegler found common threads.

"The things that do unify them are senses of movement, and constantly trying to lap and outdo the previous generation, which is where the ‘Forth’ part of it comes from...just to convey some sort of always going further and further," Ziegler said. "The Union bit (focuses on the idea) that there's all these directional groundbreaking kinds of people just coming together."

Once he had the concept, he began looking into the aesthetic of the branding.

MORE: Outdoor ice rink is coming to Pier Village

He looked back in time at historic graphic design work, and came across Lester Beall's work from the late 1930s. At the time, Beall designed posters for the government's Rural Electrification Administration, which aimed to bring electricity to rural farm areas.

"He was using classic red, white and blue stripes and basic shapes to make these really powerful posters," Ziegler said. "He was addressing a lot of people who were resistant to electrification. I thought well that’s kind of funny because a lot of people in town over the years have been very resistant to (skate). (I thought) it would be a nice, easy parallel to draw. Like, 'Hey, this isn't so bad. It's not so scary.' "

When Ziegler was a kid, he said he remembers constantly getting kicked out for skating. He believes an image has the power to change minds and stigmas.

"Even though skate’s been going on for as long as it has, it still has this kind of rough edge to it for the general public. They think, 'They're punks running around breaking stuff,' " Ziegler said. "(I tried to make the branding) really easy to digest and understand."

A form of expression

Rinaldi said once the skate park officially opens, he expects to see skaters as young as 5 up to their late 50s.

"The guys I grew up skating with hit me up and said to me, ‘I can’t wait to bring my kid here,’ and saying, 'Thanks so much,' " Cuccaro said, "which makes me feel old. But that alone was so cool to me."

Growing up, skate was a way of life for Cuccaro and Rinaldi.

Rinaldi, 47, grew up in Ortley Beach, where you either surfed or you skated — or both.

For Cuccaro, who grew up in Oceanport, it started out of boredom.

But today skating has become a form of expression for Cuccaro.

“I like to think it’s something I’ll always do," Cuccaro said. "(Skate can be) for anything. It can be for anger, happiness — whatever you feel. You go and let that out on the skateboard."

When the two first got into skating, there were no skate parks.

“It was like you had a ramp behind your school or you had a curb," Cuccaro said.

“We had no skate parks so if you found a pool, you skated in a pool. If you found a ramp, you skated on a ramp," Rinaldi added.

MORE: Tour Asbury Park's latest luxury condo

As kids, the two always came down to Asbury Park to skate. When the area was abandoned, Cuccaro said it was a "free for all."

They would ride staircases, the empty streets, sidewalks and boardwalk.

In the late '90s, Cuccaro said he'd ride the original skate park that was in the Carousel building and operated it for about two years.

There was also the Deal Lake skate pool until it shut down.

“I saw firsthand the kids who (used to come) to the skate park or who came to the (skate) pool ... When it was gone, if they couldn’t get a car and go somewhere, they were stuck," Cuccaro said. "They ended up hanging out on the street, selling drugs and just starting trouble.”

Cuccaro has been trying to get a permanent skate park in Asbury Park for the past 10 years, he said.

Skate Asbury's mission is still to get a permanent structure for a skate park. They have been approved, but finding a location still proves to be a struggle.

"To watch it all come together and to see the amount of photos posted online and to see how excited (the community) is ... it's been pretty amazing," Rinaldi said.

Fall rates for skating is $5 a day, $30 for a monthly pass. Hour of operation will be 2 to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.

The schedule for the free skate Sunday is as follows:

10 a.m. to noon: Skate for kids only

Noon to 5 p.m.: All ages welcome

6 p.m.: Bonfire at Anchor's Bend location

7:30 p.m.: Doors open to the "Fourth Phase" movie premiere at Paramount Theatre, movie starts at 9 p.m.

Visit forthunionap.com for more information. Visit asburyparkskateboardfoundation.org to learn more about Skate Asbury.