Venice Beach Skatepark | |
---|---|
Type | Skatepark |
Location | Venice, Los Angeles |
Coordinates | 33°59′14″N118°28′32″W / 33.9871°N 118.4755°W |
Area | 16,000 Sq. Ft. |
Opened | October 2009 |
Operated by | City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks |
Terrain | Concrete |
The Venice Beach Skatepark is a public skatepark located in Venice, Los Angeles. It opened in late 2009. [1] [2] [3] [4] It is also officially known as the Dennis "Polar Bear" Agnew Memorial Skatepark, named after famed Z-Boy skater Dennis Agnew. The 16,000 square foot park is located near Windward Avenue and Ocean Front Walk street. The skate park features steps, rails, and bowls that resemble empty swimming pools. The park cost $3.4 million to build, and the funds came from the sale of surplus city property in Venice. [5]
Venice Beach has been host to a number of well known skate spots throughout the history of skateboarding. From the backyard bowls to the concrete plaza covered in graffiti, the landscapes of Venice, California were integral to the development of skateboarding. [6] [7] [8] Starting in the 2000s, a group of Venice locals, headed by Jesse Martinez, organized an effort to build the Venice Beach Skatepark. [1]
In April 2020, the park was covered in sand to discourage gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. [9]
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 is included in the 2024 games.
Venice is a neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California, United States.
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 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.
Vans is an American apparel, accessories, and skateboarding shoes brand, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and motocross teams. From 1996 to 2019, the brand was the primary sponsor of the annual Warped Tour music festival.
Jay J. Adams was an American skateboarder. As a teen, he was the youngest member of the Zephyr Competition Skateboarding Team (Z-Boys). His spontaneous freestyle skateboarding style, inspired by ocean surfing, helped innovate and popularize modern skateboarding. His aggressive vertical tricks make him one of skateboarding's most influential stylists. He has been called "the original seed" of skateboarding.
Robert Lance Mountain is an American professional skateboarder and artist who was one of the prominent skateboarders throughout the 1980s, primarily due to his involvement with the Bones Brigade. As of August 2017, Mountain continues to skate professionally and his sponsors include Flip, Nike SB, Independent Trucks, Spitfire Wheels, and Bones Bearings.
Nyjah Imani Huston is an American professional skateboarder. With numerous sponsorships and competition prize winnings, Huston is one of the highest paid skateboarders in the world. Huston won gold medals at the SLS Super Crown World Championship in 2014, 2017 to 2019, and has won 15 gold medals at the X Games since 2011. Huston won his first Olympic medal, a bronze, in the 2024 Olympic men's street event at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.
The Burnside Skatepark is a DIY concrete skatepark located in Portland, Oregon, United States. Burnside was the first DIY skatepark project. 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 receives no funding from the city of Portland. The park is regarded as an on-going project that is funded by donations.
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.
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."
A list of skateparks in New York City.
Look Back Library (LBL) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of skateboard magazines, and other printed skateboard materials, through traveling exhibits and the building of publicly accessible skateboard magazine libraries.
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.
Millennium Skate Park, also known as Owl's Head Skate Park, is a skate park in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, located in Owl's Head Park, adjacent to the Sunset Park Greenway.
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, South Dakota, United States, 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.
The Del Mar Skate Ranch, also known as the DMSR, was an American skatepark in Del Mar, California, which opened August 1978 and was demolished July 1987.
Scantlebury Skate Park is a public skatepark built in Scantlebury Park in the Dixwell neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut. The park opened in 2020.