Carlsbad skatepark

**sk8norcal** · 04-19-2008 10:46 PM

was looking in TWS's 'back in the day' column (righy next to the hair gel ad)

featuring the 'first' skateboard park

carlsbad.

Carlsbad Skatepark Memorial

**toki** · 04-19-2008 10:56 PM

darn. i live in carlsbad now. too bad its been closed for more then a decade now. o well that was a sick site

**sealfishtale** · 04-19-2008 11:01 PM

wish that park was still around...

**breamo** · 04-22-2008 04:00 PM

Gravity and a few other local companies tried to raise enough money to save the park. DC Shoes stepped up and said they'd cover the rest, then a few weeks later they were bought by Quiksilver and re-negged on the deal. Publicly traded companies.... bleh. DC had a real chance to be heros.

**skategeezer** · 04-23-2008 08:02 AM

man, I would love to have skated that park!

**Xgecko** · 04-23-2008 08:43 AM

Anyone remember the old (not K38 ) TJ skatepark uphill from Revolution??? That was one of my favorite snake runs

**mangels** · 04-23-2008 10:42 AM

My town has a little tiny skatepark ... but they are planning on expanding it. I went to some of the planning meetings. They are looking to have a bowl or two, but the snake run was decribed as something old guys like to do. So I doubt they will have a snake run.

I skated at the Endless Wave in Oxnard back in the late 70's - before I was an OG - and the snake run was my favorite part of the park!

meh ... maybe I was just old before my time.

**breamo** · 04-23-2008 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by Xgecko

Anyone remember the old (not K38 ) TJ skatepark uphill from Revolution??? That was one of my favorite snake runs

Tons of footage of the old TJ park in one of the first Gravity videos... Here: Gravity Skateboards - Beyond Gravity

We used to live at that park in the mid 90's.

**Xgecko** · 04-23-2008 11:12 AM

Originally Posted by breamo

Tons of footage of the old TJ park in one of the first Gravity videos... Here: Gravity Skateboards - Beyond Gravity

We used to live at that park in the mid 90's.

yeah early to mid 90's I was skated there at least twice a month, what happened to it anyway? Bulldozer?

**breamo** · 04-23-2008 11:22 AM

Originally Posted by Xgecko

yeah early to mid 90's I was skated there at least twice a month, what happened to it anyway? Bulldozer?

Yeah, it got 'dozed. Tranny's were still smooth, but the flats were starting to get rough. Keep the high line....

**Xgecko** · 04-23-2008 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by breamo

Yeah, it got 'dozed. Tranny's were still smooth, but the flats were starting to get rough. Keep the high line....

The flat bottoms were rough my first time there in 1989, high lines were always a requirement that I remember. I do miss that flow...damn I need to go down to Maryland and get a snake run fix

**msk** · 04-23-2008 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by Cavalier

Current skatepark designers should look to Carlsbad for inspiration.

I have a difficult time understanding why only pools and street features are replicated in skateparks. Why not replicate the Carlsbad features in some new skatepark? There are so many other features (snakeruns and moguls to name two) that skateboarders have ridden that are just ignored by skatepark designers.

One big reason would be space. Carlsbad, along with most other 70s parks, was several times larger than the majority of current public parks (averaging about 30,000 to 60,000 square feet). The Carlsbad mogul field alone was bigger than most current skateparks. If you've only got 10,000-12,000 square feet to work with, a pool and street area is a much better use of space.

Also, the mogul field concept wasn't even popular back then. An interesting idea, but the vast majority of skaters just weren't interested in it. I don't know anyone who went out of their way to skate Carlsbad, except in the early days when it was one of the only parks. If it had been a successful concept, I'm sure that other parks would've copied it, but I can't recall any that did. The really successful parks were the ones with the best pools, pipes, and halfpipes. Once vert took over, even snakeruns were ignored, and many later 70s parks usually didn't even bother building them, since they would've just been wasted concrete...

**Pinhead** · 04-24-2008 12:20 PM

**rawls** · 04-24-2008 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by Pinhead

...Still not sure if it is a good idea having the
snake run connected with the bowl and having a skake run without coping...

real snakeruns never had coping, they were round lipped or square lipped.

Also while we are on the topic there is quite bit of evidence that carlsbad was not the first skatepark. While this video is not a actual skate park, but rather small neighborhood/city funded project for a run and a bowl, it predates Carlsbad. But there were atleast a couple of more actual established parks predating carlsbad. One of which was Escape Country in the LA area which was made of asphalt with small moguls and bowl and snake-like run.

YouTube - santa cruz skateboard 70s

Also check this baby out my home park in the 79-81 time frame
SkateAlabama - The Park/gawoverview1

**msk** · 04-24-2008 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by rawls

Also while we are on the topic there is quite bit of evidence that carlsbad was not the first skatepark. While this video is not a actual skate park, but rather small neighborhood/city funded project for a run and a bowl, it predates Carlsbad. But there were atleast a couple of more actual established parks predating carlsbad. One of which was Escape Country in the LA area which was made of asphalt with small moguls and bowl and snake-like run.

I don't have the particular issue, but in an old issue of SkateBoarder, right about the time that Carlsbad opened, there was mention of a park on the East Coast that opened a few weeks before Carlsbad did...

**rawls** · 04-25-2008 02:09 PM

The east coast park was most likely Skatboard City (skateboard city) in Port Orange. There is a longstanding battle about who was first. Tamoka Moonforest was pretty early too, and the designers were into the terminology of "flow" and did a whole interview about it in 'a 77 Skaterider/Waverider Magazine issue. the frederick Street Bowl and the Escape Country Park could have been as much as year earlier. And there were probably more. i heard rumour of an asphalt park on east coast too, that was real early on.

all I know is we had to wait till christmas of 77 to get our first park (100 miles away), and it was a FREAKING blast. you coastal guys had everything earlier.

**msk** · 04-25-2008 08:55 PM

This was my home park for about half a year (about 6 miles from my home) :

http://www.lancemountain.com/mainpag...montebello.mov

One of the earliest parks (opened in '76), and one of the first to close (mid '77). All snake runs, and went from being a popular spot to a ghost town almost instantly when Skatopia and Upland both opened in spring of '77. Both of those parks had vert bowls, as well as the first halfpipe (Skatopia), and first full pipe (Upland). Those two parks set the standard for what a skatepark should be. The earlier parks either expanded and added vert, or shut down from lack of business.

BTW, the kid in the video wearing the yellow shirt is Lance Mountain...