{"id":2445,"date":"2006-05-08T20:35:05","date_gmt":"2006-05-09T03:35:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2026-10-04T21:14:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T04:14:56","slug":"2006-st-johns-tear-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/2006-st-johns-tear-down\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Johns Tear Down & Demolition Session"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The new park starts with the demolition! I went to go check out the progress on the St Johns Skatepark tear down after the first day, and here it is. Not much to say here. There was already a kid inside skating when I got there. Several others arrived a few minutes later and were in a state of bewilderment. It seems they had no idea that the park was being torn down to make room for another one. They thought we were just losing a spot!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The first two pictures are larger panoramas and will open in a new window. The rest are regular thumbnails. Can\u2019t remember what it looked like? The bottom two pictures are from 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not a ghost skater… this is two photos stitched together.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The NOping on this bowl won\u2019 the missed by anyone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Someone did get this coping!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Fake drop in and a tip of the hat to the Last Ride at Flowmotion<\/em> by Bill Daniel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Somebody should grab that coping!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Unknown – St Johns Skatepark 2002<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Gordon Gilchrest – St Johns Skatepark 2002<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Demolition Session!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Well, we never got around to holding the King of Oregon\u2019s Krappiest Skatepark<\/a> contest. In spite of all it\u2019s flaws, we\u2019ve had a lot of fun at St John\u2019s skate park. Maybe even because of them. The surface was rough, the transitions were  bulging, the coping was inset, and the park drained into a dead end. Because it was so craptacular there was nothing to lose. We\u2019ve had a handful of amusing dork sessions and interacted with the park locals who range from little kids on bikes with training wheels to sullen adolescents working on their social stature through kickflips and  mutated fashions. This park was ghetto to be sure. It was also like watching a Three Stooges movie \u2013 mostly boring but sometimes a lot of stupid fun for 20 minutes or so. Plus, just as the Three Stooges are on TV at all time somewhere in the world,  you knew St Johns was sitting there waiting for you if you cared to change the channel…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Conahan goes for the first drop in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mark Conahan airs his grievances about crappy skateparks. Ho ho!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first demo pictures were taken on Friday. On Saturday we were winding down after a good day\u2019s worth of skating when a few of us decided to see if they had done any further work. The little bowl and the flat where everyone works on their flip tricks was still standing, and there was a handful of kids listlessly working the remains. We took a few turns in the bowl, which was more of a spoon actually, and started eyeing the last remaining transition. A kid on a BMX bike helped us clear away debris and we had a go at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kilwag goes for the boneless. Something I would never have considered doing there when it wasn’t half destroyed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Trying to get some of the bucket.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first drop in off the partially destroyed bank seemed a lot scarier than it actually was. There was rebar sticking out and barely any room to put the tip of your tail down on a flat-ish spot between it. I had visions of dropping in and having the board or my foot getting wedged in the rebar \u2013 ouch! Embarrassingly, it turned out to be a non-event, especially since Mark already did it.   Soon we started expanding our limits of what we thought was possible at the tiny remains of the park. When the camera came out we stared goofing off harder. I joked to Mark that he should do an invert and he said \u201cOK\u201d just to be difficult, and soon he started landing hand plants. Inspired by Mark, I had some fun with boneless ones.  I hadn\u2019t really tried a boneless in 10 years, at least not to the point of actually trying to land on the board. Now I couldn\u2019t remember why I stopped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John Aguilar just moved to Washington from Mexico City. He said the parks in Mexico are still rougher than this!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Kilwag. The no-risk rock and roll. Whee!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mark Conahan works on sweeping the crap out of the park.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the end, our skate snack at St johns turned into a Last Supper. It was probably the most fun we\u2019d ever had at that place, which was ironic because it was at it\u2019s most unskateable condition.<\/strong> I wasn\u2019t even bummed that I flat spotted my wheels. It took the demise of the park to make us see it in a new way. For that reason I suggest tearing down all skateparks half way and then holding contests there. Ha ha.<\/em> Seriously, I was beginning to feel guilty about not taking advantage of it more often until I remembered how much it sucked and thought about what was replacing it. It will be an interesting dynamic when the new place gets built. BMX will be present. They never really overran the place before, but with world class facilities on the way, who knows who will come out of the wood work. Physically, the park is almost at the farthest outskirts of Portland residential areas, the last chance saloon before  an industrial wilderness. How will the krusty locals and half-assed gangstas mesh with the influx of skateboarders that will surely come? St Johns could become a hot spot of activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kilwag at the bucket. It was hard to get up that high from the tiny bank left opposite.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mark Conahan. Talk about rough coping…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Mark Conahan is a smart ass who will do things like this.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t believe that I\u2019m still blathering on about this. As we were leaving, we started putting up parts of the fence that were knocked over. It looked like someone had driven a car into it. We told the remaining kids to close the fence when they left. On the way out, one of Portland\u2019s skating dignitaries was arriving in anticipation meeting another key dreamer. Our bodies gave up before our spirit did. We vowed to return with video cameras the next day, but it rained and by Monday evening there was nothing skateable left. Ah St Johns Skatepark, Alas, I knew him well\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new park starts with the demolition! I went to go check out the progress on the St Johns Skatepark tear down after the first day, and here it is. Not much to say here. There was already a kid inside skating when I got there. Several others arrived a few minutes later and were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2445"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5804,"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2445\/revisions\/5804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skateandannoy.com\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}