Ghost Parking Lot missing
This installation known as Ghost Parking Lot existed in Hamden, Connecticut from 1978 to 2003 (or 2007, depending on the source) yet somehow never ended up in a skate video or photo layout in a skate magazine, at least not that I am aware of. If it did, someone please enlighten me. This looked like a great spot for street skating. The shots above were found at Whoadude. They appear to be photos from when the installation was relatively new. Roadside Attractions has more recent photos that make the place look pretty decrepit. Apparently it was pretty hard to maintain. It did appear on TV shortly after it opened, and ironically, there’s a kid in the crowd who rides up to the location with a skateboard and a bewildered look on his face.
– Thanks to Julian Gilbert-Davis for the tip.
Original video has been removed. 🙁 Here’s one from a later date, in a bad state.
SITE architects was behind these installations, they had a series of BEST department stores they did back in the late 70’s each with its own aesthetic. The melting cars was an attempt at making the point of how much area parking lots were taking up, and the subsequent heat generated…the other stores are pretty cool too worth looking at, not much to skate though.
heres the link to the firms website, you can still see one of their last remaining buildings in houston that looks like its crumbling.
http://sitenewyork.com/frame/index.htm
That spot was skated for years. Jim Greco skates what was left of it in the first baker bootleg video, not that anyone cares.
I remember driving by that many times as a kid growing up in CT. Never skated it unfortunately. I never even saw anyone skating it which seems impossible.
The video makes it look very skate-able. Could have been an instant bust, though.
Jim Greco and his skateboarding magic
about 30 seconds in
very interesting. is this the same “Best ” dept. stores we have around now? they wern’t around me in the northwest till sorta recently (10 or 15 yrs). if it is the same company, what a let down. what a visonary dept. store they were, and now they are just the same crap their art mocked.
the one dude says “the old people think it’s morbid”. it’s fully morbid. it’s shocking to me that this instaltion happened at some mall situation, and like 30+ yrs ago. that is some creepy art, but mighty tasty looking if you have some 90-95A wheels
best was a chain based in richmond va. the owners (the lewis’s) were big time collectors/supporters of great art and were into doing weird shit like this with their stores. unfortunately they didn’t give us anything quite as awesome in richmond.. expect for donating most of their collection to the fine arts museum here.. which is pretty sweet. the chain is completely dead now as far as i know.
I’m old. We used to skate the tar cars in in the 80’s. Such a unique spot. Cars melting into the pavement. Sort of post apocholyptic.
Not smooth or well spaced, gummed up your wheels, but you could skate on classic cars and nobody cared.
That’s so.. what the word I’m looking for? Oh right… RAD!