Mark Conahan dug up some of his own old photos from 1978 while he was in the process of helping me identify the skateparks in a different pile of old photos. All of these were taken in 1978 at Skateboard World in Torrance, California. It’s mostly MC and Kevin Anderson, plus a bonus shot of a wee Eric Dressen.

Thanks to Dan Hakes for allowing this repost of some old photos from an unnamed skatepark in 1978, possibly in the San Bernardino county area. Concretes Disciples list two dead 70’s skateparks in that county, Colton Ranch, and Skate Crater. If you know, drop the name in the comments. Update. It’s two different parks. The snake run and half pipe have been identified as Skateboard World in Torrance and the bowl is The Runway in Carson, thanks to MC.

Near as I can tell this is a new model for DIY skateparks, or for that matter, skateparks in general. Court 2.0 is a project to replace the DIY spot known as “Courts,” located on the Portland State University campus. Originally the site of derelict tennis courts, it became a permission spot for what was supposed to be a 1 year trial period. Basically, a sanctioned spot to build or bring your own obstacles. That spot was always going to be temporary, and PSU is going to begin construction of an art building on that site. In a lesson learned at Burnside, key to a DIY spot is being a good neighbor. Organizers have managed to secure a 300k grant to develop a new spot nearby, again with the blessing of PSU. This new spot will add a few amenities missing from the old spot, notably a set of skate able ledges somewhat disguised as seating. It’s important to note these obstacles are not concrete, and are therefore reconfigurable, but not in the model of the institutional modular skateparks. This is truly community driven.

I haven’t been to the Cannon Beach skatepark in don’t know… has it really been 18 years? That’s the when the rebuild opened and the last time I posted about this park. I got out of the habit of going to Cannon Beach and have been going to Pacific City instead, but I finally made it back. After a day of hanging out at the beach we hit up the park and found it to be next to impossible to ride on standard wheels because the surface was so rough and slow. That got me thinking about the old park again…

Skunks, old men, children, rats, raccoons, and automobiles… Those are all things we’re accustomed to seeing in the Venn diagram of “things that get stuck in skateparks.” Now we can add moose to the list too. This moose calf was rescued by Colorado Parks and Wildlife at the Breckenridge Skatepark. Apparently the mother was nearby and calmly waited for her calf to be rescued, which is lucky because Moose are not an animal you want to mess with. Just ask Natasha and Boris.

Source: Team Pain Skateparks.

Check out this refurbished tennis court in Sokolov, Czech Republic, built by Bonidee Skateparks. These guys have some good looking sites in their portfolio, mostly street plaza oriented but with the occasional very light sprinkle of transition. Stuff that looks fun even to an old zine editor…. This park is a little confusing to look at in pictures, almost like bad AI, but not as jarring as this tennis court from 2008.

SOURCE: Blunt Magazine. (Hey web-scrapers, see how easy that was to do?)

I was in Forest Grove to watch the mighty Boxers play soccer and had some time to kill before the kickoff, so I walked over to check out the local skatepark. Lincoln Park Skatepark was (poorly) designed and built by Site Design Group in 2004. It has that early 2000’s vibe of “I know how to pour concrete but I don’t understand the scales of transitions or how to set coping.” There are some street plaza elements that are successful, but the concrete picnic table looks like it was made to fit NBA players and the volcanoes are steep and tall, one of them comically so. There is one section of a very long quarter pipe that has “noping” and nothing on the opposing. side. Still, the skateboarding locals are friendly and it’s better than nothing. That’s Xavier on the long rail slide above.

It turns out that The Turf isn’t the only legendary 70’s skatepark being dug up. There’s another park in Glasgow, Scotland known as Kelvin Wheelies (more on that name later) that is scheduled to be unearthed. The BBC reports that Scotland’s first skatepark is going to be dug up by archaeologist, to what end? Even they aren’t sure.

From Surfin’ Turf to Bell E. Buttons, to The Turf, to buried, to resurrected and buried again, to dug up and re-poured. The Turf is now open again! This areal shot is from drone footage circulated by the Mayor of Greenfield Wisconsin, Michael Neitzke, who was instrumental in making this momentous occasion move from just a dream to a reality. Midwesterners of the 80’s and skaters of today, rejoice!

I went to the soft opening of a brand new Parklane skatepark in Portland Oregon with a bunch of old men, all of them better skaters than me, one of them probably better than you.