It's your turn! A public outdoor squash court has just been installed in Chicago, a first in the United StatesIt will be located precisely in the Fulton Market district, in Union Park. The court was inaugurated on May 16 on the sidelines of the World Championships, organized in Chicago. We wanted accessibility, visibility as well as the community. The court's design and location offer all of this. It's an ideal location to launch the Beacon Project ", says Arnie Dratt, president of the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Foundation.
The exterior walls of the court will also serve as a support for art exhibitions to display works by children and professional artists. This court isn't just a place to play squash, it's a statement. We've taken a sport traditionally played indoors and put it in full public view, in the heart of the city. Squash is growing and that is everything it needs to be for become a global and inclusive sport », explains Rik Zwikker, founder of the start-up Access Courts, which produced the work.
This initiative is part of the Beacon Project, on which the PSA Foundation and the United States Squash Federation are collaborating to give squash more visibility and make it more accessible. "We support this project as a first step, a prototype, so that we can learn from it and apply them to help other communities do the same, says Kevin Klipstein, president and CEO of US Squash. We will learn lessons from this experience and pass them on, with the idea that other places and cities will do the same to increase the visibility of squash.
