A skatepark, or skate park, is a purpose-built recreational environment made for skateboarding, BMX, scootering, and aggressive inline skating. A skatepark may contain half-pipes, handrails, funboxes, vert ramps, stairsets, quarter pipes, ledges, spine transfers, pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, pools, bowls, snake runs, and any number of other objects. [1]
Most of the early skateparks were in the United States. The first skatepark in the world, Surf City, opened for business at 5140 East Speedway Road in Tucson, Arizona on September 3, 1965. [2] [1] Patti McGee, Women's National Champion, attended the grand opening. The park had concrete ramps and was operated by Arizona Surf City Enterprises, Inc. [3] A skatepark for skateboarders and skaters made of plywood ramps on a half-acre lot in Kelso, Washington, opened in April 1966. It was lighted for night use. [4] California's first, the Carlsbad Skatepark opened on March 3, 1976. The World Skateboard Championships were held here on April 10, 1977. It operated until 1979, when it was buried intact beneath a layer of dirt for more than two decades, before being destroyed in 2005. [1] The current Carlsbad Skatepark is in a different location. [5] The East Coast's first skatepark, Ocean Bowl Skate Park, in Ocean City, Maryland, opened the first week of June, 1976. Due to time, wear, and the current needs of skaters, the old bowl and ramp were torn down in the Fall of 1997 and the new park opened in July 1998. [6] The Sandy Hills Skate Park, in Lansdowne, Maryland, is the oldest operating municipal skate park in the United States. In 1999 the city of Hermosa Beach, California opened a small skatepark at the site of the first skateboard competition. The competition held at the Pier Avenue Junior High School (now a city museum) was organized by Dewey Weber across the street from his surf and skateboard shop. Makaha Skateboards was a sponsor of the competition. [7] In 1987, an all wooden indoor skate park, called CT Bike, opened in Bristol, Connecticut . [8] CT Bike is where Tony Hawk made his debut when he was a young boy on his first East Coast tour. [8] Until its closing in 2022, the indoor skate park was operated by the same family who built the park despite a fire that threatening the park in 1988. [8] As of 2022 the park is now permanently closed. [8]
In more extreme climates, parks were built indoors, often using wood or metal. By the end of the 1970s, the popularity of skateboarding had waned, and the original parks of the era began to close. A downturn in the overall skateboard market in the 1980s, coupled with high liability insurance premiums, contributed to the demise of the first wave of skateparks. Some second-generation parks, such as Upland, California's Pipeline, survived into the 1980s. However, few of the private parks of the 1970s remain, with the notable exception of Kona Skatepark in Jacksonville, Florida. [9] However, many public parks of that era can still be found throughout Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand.[ citation needed ]
The modern skatepark designs of the Pacific Northwest can be traced back to Burnside Skatepark, a DIY "barge build" beneath the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Oregon. Skateboarders used an area populated primarily by the city's "undesirable elements" to create a skatepark, building one section at a time. The process is called "design/build" (D/B), and is a characteristic of many skateparks today. The design/build process ensures that adjacent skatepark features are harmonious and rideable, allowing skateboarders to create endless "lines" to ride among the many features.
Skate parks, related obstacles/ramps and locations designed for extreme sport utilization have made their way into the media over time, such as with the aforementioned Burnside Skatepark being included in the movie Free Willy.
Public skateparks have had a resurgence in the US, made possible by legislation such as California's 1998 law stating that skateboarding is an inherently "Hazardous Recreational Activity" (HRA), and therefore municipalities and their employees may not be held liable for claims of negligence resulting in skateboarders' injuries.
Street skating has blurred the line between skateparks and street spots. Some cities are starting to put in skate spots/plazas with features that would not have been classically designed for skateboarding, but can be skated by street skaters legally. In some instances, street spots that were not originally designed for skateboarding have been converted into sanctioned skate plazas.
There is also an emerging movement of making art and sculpture skate-able. This provides additional legal skate spots that blend well with other city art and landscape features. Skate-able art allows for the creation of thriving multi-use areas, as installations often become picturesque destinations for skaters and non-skaters alike.
Unlike organized sports, like basketball or football, skateboarding has no set arena or rules and skateparks have no standard design template. Each skatepark is designed specifically to provide unique challenges to its users. There are, however, three main categories of skatepark design: bowl, street plaza and flow parks.
Bowl parks are designed to emulate and improve upon the pool skating experience. Skaters in bowl parks can move around the park without taking their feet off the board to push. The curved walls of bowls allow skaters to ride around and across the bowl in addition to the back and forth skating you might see on a traditional half pipe. Bowls and bowl parks come in an endless variety of shapes and sizes but most bowls are between 3' and 12’ deep.
Street plaza parks are the favorite of the vast majority of skaters and they are designed to emulate and improve upon the street skating experience. Obstacles in a street plaza are styled to look like natural street terrain such as stairs, railings, planters and benches. Skaters will push off with their feet to gain momentum in a street plaza. The first public outdoor skate plaza is the Vancouver Skate Plaza, built in 2004 by New Line Skateparks.
Flow parks (or Park style) combine elements of both bowl parks and street plazas. In a well designed flow park a skater can pump around the parks curved walls such as quarter pipes, pump bumps and bowl corners without taking their feet off to push. They can use that speed to hit street obstacles such as stairs, railings and benches.
Skateparks may be privately or publicly owned. Privately owned skateparks usually have admission fees, while publicly owned skateparks are generally free. Many privately owned skateparks are indoors, usually in warehouses, roller rinks or buildings with high ceilings, especially in areas with snowy winters. Public skateparks are usually outdoors.
Skatepark construction can be divided into two major categories — prefabricated and custom built concrete. Prefabricated parks can be made of wood, plastic, sheet metal, and concrete. Most[ quantify ] are designed and built by playground equipment manufacturers[ which? ] who present these parks as a cost-effective alternative to custom-designed concrete skateparks.[ citation needed ] In reality, custom built concrete skateparks can be quite cost competitive with prefabricated skate ramps.[ citation needed ]
According to an editor of Transworld Skateboarding magazine, concrete parks are now "pretty much the industry standard" as they require fewer repairs and less maintenance. [10]
Skateboarding is an action sport 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. Originating in the United States, 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 would be represented at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, for both male and female teams. Skateboarding made its Olympic debut in 2020 and was included in the 2024 games.
Steve Caballero is an American professional skateboarder. He is known for the difficult tricks and air variations he invented for vertical skating and for setting the long-standing record for the highest air achieved on a halfpipe. In 1999, Thrasher Magazine named Caballero the "Skater of the Century".
A half-pipe is a structure used in gravity extreme sports such as snowboarding, skateboarding, skiing, freestyle BMX, skating, and scooter riding.
A terrain park or snow park is an outdoor recreation area containing terrain that allows skiers, snowboarders and snowbikers to perform tricks. Terrain parks have their roots in skateparks and many of the features are common to both.
A funbox is a standard element of a skatepark. It generally consists of a box shape with a flat top and a ramp on two or more sides. A funbox may also include other elements that allow for more complicated skateboarding tricks.
Freestyle BMX is bicycle motocross stunt riding on BMX bikes. It is an extreme sport descended from BMX racing that consists of five disciplines: street, park, vert, trails, and flatland. In June 2017, the International Olympic Committee announced that freestyle park was to be added as an Olympic event to the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Penn Valley Skatepark is one of the more recent additions to the park, and is also known as Kansas City Skate Plaza because of the similar appearance of a "plaza-type" Skatepark. Officially opened in late Fall of 2005, Escapist Skateboarding has hosted at least five separate skateboard demonstrations, including Zero Skateboards, Circa Shoes, and Toy Machine.
Harrow Skate Park or Harrow Solid Surf is one of only two remaining 1970's shotcrete skateparks still operating in the United Kingdom. It is located next to Byron Park and Harrow Leisure Centre in Wealdstone in the London Borough of Harrow, England.
Spohn Ranch is a skatepark design and construction firm based in Industry, California. The firm specializes in the construction and design of concrete skateparks and skate plazas, skateable art sculptures, several styles of ramps, and courses for skateboarding, BMX and motocross events.
A skateboard style refers to the way a skateboarder can ride a skateboard. Styles of skateboarding have evolved and are influenced by a number of factors including sociocultural evolution, mass media, music, technology, and corporate influence.
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.
Pitcher Park Memorial Skate Park is a skatepark that was built in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. Members of the community of the South Hills of Pittsburgh undertook a grass roots effort to build this as a memorial to honor two brothers, Vincent and Stephen Pitcher, who drowned together on July 15, 2008, while on a camping trip at the Kinzua Dam next to the Allegheny Reservoir.
Turf Skatepark, also known as "Surfin' Turf" or "The Turf", is a former skatepark located in Greenfield, Wisconsin, United States, less than one mile south of the city of Milwaukee. The Turf was an indoor/outdoor facility consisting of five sculptured concrete pools providing some of the best terrain of its time.
Street skateboarding is a skateboarding discipline which focuses on flat-ground 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 single tricks or as part of a series of consecutive tricks called a "line."
Texas Beach Skate Park, also known as Treasure Island Community Skate Park, is a DIY skatepark located within the planned Riverview Community Park in the Texas Beach riverside area on the north bank of the James River in Richmond, Virginia, United States.
Andy Kessler Skatepark formerly Riverside Skatepark is a skatepark located in Riverside Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. Riverside Skatepark is notable as the first full-sized public skatepark in Manhattan, designed and built by renowned skateboarder and skatepark builder Andy Kessler.
Pier 62 Skatepark is a public skatepark located in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The skatepark, which opened in 2010, is located in Hudson River Park on Pier 62 overlooking the Hudson River. Pier 62 Skatepark is notable as it is the only modern full size vert concrete transition skatepark in New York City.
A skate spot is a location used for skateboarding.
