Backstrom has been riding the streets of Cambridge for seven years, frequenting the commercial skateboard park "Zero-gravity," a cement-lined basin, before it closed several years ago. Now, he practices at Turtle Park, a public facility on the Charles River with a paved surface just right for tricks.

"It's enjoyable in small amounts," says occasional skateboarder Andrew L. Osbourn '89, "You can do it in the few minutes it takes to get to lunch. And it doesn't take a great amount of time to learn."

According to these part-time boarders, serious practitioners lurk nearby in Harvard Square. "If you want hardcore skateboarding, go to the little triangle behind the T," Osbourn says.

Merchants in adjoining areas say they are content with the new development. "I think it's a good thing that skateboarding is making a comeback," says the Assistant Night Manager at Store 24. "It's a fun sport and it's better than doing drugs."

However, all is not roses for students who want to roll around campus.

"I can recall people being run into--handicapped people, people who can't get out of the way fast enough," Deputy Chief of Harvard University Police Jack W. Morse says.

In 1984 alone, over 13,000 children under the age of 15 were sent to the hospital with skateboard related injuries, according to a Massachusetts Medical Society report published last month.

Although no regulation explicitly forbids skateboarding on campus, Harvard police routinely stop skateboarders under a clause which allows them to restrict all dangerous activity.

"The danger is evident," Morse says. "I don't think responsible people would want to do it."