Skateboarding is an action sport originating in the United States that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation. Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2009 report found that the skateboarding market is worth an estimated $4.8 billion in annual revenue, with 11.08 million active skateboarders in the world. In 2016, it was announced that skateboarding will be represented at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, for both male and female teams.
Anthony Frank Hawk, nicknamed Birdman, is an American professional skateboarder, entrepreneur, and the owner of the skateboard company Birdhouse. He completed the first documented "900" skateboarding trick in 1999, licensed a video game series named after him published by Activision that same year, and is a pioneer of modern vertical skateboarding. He retired from competing professionally in 2003 and in recent years has often been regarded as one of the most influential skateboarders of all time.
A skatepark, or skate park, is a purpose-built recreational environment made for skateboarding, BMX, scooter, wheelchair, and aggressive inline skating. A skatepark may contain half-pipes, handrails, funboxes, vert ramps, stairsets, quarter pipes, spine transfers, pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, pools, bowls, snake runs, and any number of other objects.
Ferndale is a small town located in the Rhondda Valley in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales. Neighbouring villages are Blaenllechau, Maerdy and Tylorstown. Ferndale was industrialised in the mid-19th century. The first coal mine shaft was sunk in 1857 and was the first community to be intensively industrialised in the Rhondda Valley.
Stockwell Skatepark, also known as "Brixton Bowls" or "Brixton Beach", is a concrete skatepark situated on the corner of Stockwell Park Walk and Stockwell Road in the borough of Lambeth in South London. Construction of the park was funded by the Lambeth Borough Council in 1978 and it has been used since then by skateboarders, BMXers, rollerskaters, and assorted other self-propelled wheeled vehicle practitioners. The park is unsupervised and free to use at all hours, and has remained consistently popular throughout its life, both with locals and with visitors from all over the world.
The Burnside Skatepark is a DIY concrete skatepark located in Portland, Oregon, United States. Burnside was the first do-it-yourself concrete skatepark project and has spawned other similar projects across the globe. It is located under the east end of the Burnside Bridge. The project was started without permission from the city of Portland before being accepted as a public skatepark. Its features include many hips, pools, pyramids, and vertical sections. The skatepark is free-admission and requires no helmet, protective knee-pads, or elbow-pads. The skatepark receives no funding from the city of Portland. The park is regarded as an on-going project that is funded by donations.
Radlands was a skate park situated in Northampton, England. It was constructed in 1992 by the Ince family in a former warehouse and was the first ever indoor skate park built in Britain. The 10,000 sq ft (930 m2) park was, before its closure, one of the largest in Britain. The owners claim that over 250,000 people used the park in its 12 years of operation. It was closed on 10 October 2004 due to being unprofitable, despite a campaign by local councillors on Northampton Borough Council to save it.
North Point Park is an 8.5-acre (3.4 ha) park located along the north side of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Boston's West End, created as mitigation for the taking of planned parkland for the construction of the Big Dig.
Reedville Creek Park is a municipal park in the Reedville neighborhood of Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. Opened in 2003, the 9.6-acre (39,000 m2) park is along Cornelius Pass Road at Francis Street in the southeast area of the city. The park includes basketball courts, children’s play equipment, a picnic shelter, tennis courts, and sports fields among other amenities. Reedville Creek was the first and is the only park in Hillsboro with a skatepark.
Andrew Kessler was a Greek-born American skateboarder, skatepark builder, and prominent member of a loose-knit collective of skateboarders and graffiti artists called the Soul Artists of Zoo York. Kessler is featured in the documentary Deathbowl to Downtown.
Skateboarding arrived in China in April 1986 when an American skateboarder arrived in China to study Chinese at the Beijing Language Institute. He says, "When I arrived in China, there wasn't even a word in Chinese for skateboard. People were really interested in learning to ride, and in a few years Chinese skaters started appearing in almost every city I travelled to". Domestic skate companies and retailers began to appear at around the turn of the century, bringing the average price for a skateboard of ordinary quality down from an expensive 1000 yuan to around 280 yuan as of 2009. Skateboarding has been slow to develop in China because of the lack of a strong preexisting street culture and of skating infrastructure; nevertheless, it's estimated that as of 2009 there are 40,000 to 50,000 skateboarders in China.
Playground 52 is a 1.8-acre (0.73 ha) playground at 681 Kelly Street in the Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx, in New York City. The playground features basketball and handball courts, bathrooms, a spray shower, and a skate park. as well as an amphitheater with a large dance floor.
Street skateboarding is a skateboarding discipline which focuses on flatground tricks, grinds, slides and aerials within urban environments and public spaces. Street skateboarders meet, skate and hang out in and around urban areas referred to as "spots", which are commonly streets, plazas or industrial areas. To add variety and complexity to street skateboarding, obstacles such as handrails, stairs, walls, flower beds, bins, park benches, picnic tables and other street furniture may be traversed as part of a single trick or a series of consecutive tricks called a "line".
Pyongyang Skatepark is the first skatepark in North Korea. It was opened in November 2012 and is contained within the Ryugyong Health Complex. The skatepark includes half-pipes, ramps, grind rails and a track.
Coleman Playground is a public park in New York City, sitting on the border between Chinatown and the Lower East Side.
Far Rockaway Skate Park is a public skate park on the Rockaway Beach and Boardwalk in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York City, opened in 2011. The park is open dawn till dusk and is unsupervised. In addition to skateboarding, scooters and inline skates are permitted. The park was built over a large parking lot that was reduced in size but not eliminated. The skatepark project was part of a larger renovation of O'Donohue Park that began in 2010 and was completed in 2011. The park was designed by SITE Design Group and built by California Skateparks.
Skateparks in Virginia includes dozens of examples of skateparks.
Golconda Skate Park, known as Fat Kid, is a public skate park in the Downtown Brooklyn/Fort Greene neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York City, that originated as a DIY skate spot. Built under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, the 18,000 square foot professionally built skate park was completed in 2016 and sits within Golconda Playground.
The Wounded Knee 4-Directions Toby Eagle Bull Memorial Skatepark, also known as the Toby Eagle Bull Memorial Wounded Knee Four Directions Skate Park & the WK4-Directions TEB Memorial Skatepark, is a concrete skatepark located in Pine Ridge, S.D on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Completed in 2011 by the local community with help from skateboarding organizations, the skatepark features a spectrum of skate obstacles and is dedicated to a young Lakota skater who died in a car accident: Toby Eagle Bull. The WK4D TOB Memorial Skatepark is located in the Youth Opportunity, or “YO,” park, adjacent to the Oglala Lakota Nation powwow grounds, a picnic area, a playground, a basketball court as well as a baseball field.
