Jeff Tatum continues on his quest to hit every skatepark he can, over and over, and to report back how he rates them.  This time, he takes us to a suburb in Los Angeles, just south of Santa Monica... 

Culver City:  the Mickey Mouse Pool 

The Culver City skate park is a mix of the best and worst use of cement I’ve ever seen together in one place. As skateparks go, it’s relatively small, consisting of a street/flow area and also a Mickey Mouse head-shaped pool with pool coping and the shallow end being the ears.

The “mickey mouse pool” is a pretty serious bowl.  It’s got a deep end at about 10 foot deep and the two shallow end pieces are about 5-½ foot in the one and 6 foot in the other. The deep end has a fairly quick tranny to almost vert and the shallow ends have a quicker tranny with about 5 or 6 inches of vert. The finish on the cement is good and smooth but grippie with pretty beefy backyard style coping. The whole bowl is very backyardish for a park. There are a few lumps in it but otherwise it’s built well.

This bowl is for the semi-advanced to advanced skater. If you just learned to tail drop, you may have to climb in to take off due to the very quick shallow end tranny. Something about this bowl makes it look small in pictures but actually it’s very wide open and it takes a bit of energy to work the whole thing. If you’re not familiar with backyard pools you may not like it much.  But if you are, you’ll dig it! This kind of bowl is what So Cal needs more of. As a father I understand why city council members with kids often seem to shoot down gnarliness when it comes to So Cal skatepark construction: to make them youngster friendly. This bowl stands out because it’s not beginner/youngster friendly!  The spread-out design makes it very long board friendly, though!  It’s kind of like the Pedlow pool on steroids and it would be perfect for a serious pool contest.

One thing that kind of sucks about the mickey mouse pool is the narrow 3-foot deck around it, then a chain link fence. Oh well, gotta take the good with the bad! It’s a skatepark: they’re always going to mess something up.   Unfortunately, the narrow deck isnt’ the worst of it.  Heck, that’s not so bad.  What’s worse is the street/flow section!  It has one of the worst street/flow areas I’ve ever seen. What a waste of cement! It’s not even very functional for the toe-flippers. You gotta see it to believe it. What a joke! 

I would like to give Culver City skate park a “10” because of the kick-ass pool but, because of the few lumps in the bowl and the stupid flow/street area, I can only give it a “9”. If you like pool riding Culver City is a must. Definitely one of So Cal’s best.  Take your longboard and go skate it!