The old cinder-block building near Frayser’s Northgate Shopping Center hadn’t seen anyone skate a lap on its old hardwood floor for about 40 years when a fire gutted it in January.

It was a flea market, marked by a worn blue-and-yellow sign and surrounded by crumbled, broken concrete blocks and years’ worth of junk — old appliances, electrical cords binding together stray parts, even a few cars.

It didn’t take long for word to get around that Skateland was on fire.

Not the Frayser Flea Market that had inhabited the property for decades.

But Skateland, a very important outpost in Frayser’s growth and subsequent decline as a blue-collar suburb.

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