Along the coast of Santa Monica, Southern California was the birth place of skateboarding, In actual fact it developed from Surfboarding. Ocean Park Pier, Santa Monica began as lively popular pier, with an amusement park, arcade, a family friendly place, At the end of the 1967 tourist season, the park’s creditors and the City of Santa Monica filed suit to take control of the property because of back taxes and back rent owed by the park’s new owner since 1965. Pacific Ocean Park closed on October 6, 1967. The park’s assets were auctioned off June 28 through June 30, 1968. The proceeds from the sale of thirty-six rides and sixteen games were used to pay off creditors. The ruins of the pier became a favorite surfing area and hangout of the Z-Boys of Dogtown fame. The park’s dilapidated buildings and pier structure remained until several suspicious fires occurred and it was finally demolished in the winter of 1974-75. – “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean_Park”
In 1974, Allen Sarlo, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Chris Cahill and Stacy Peralta, started the surf team – Zephyr. The place that the team spent most of their time surfing was the Cove at Pacific Ocean Park on top of a pier. The pier was now left alone, run down and nicknamed “Dogtown” by the locals. With large tilted, wood pilings sticking out from the water, and not enough room for everyone who wanted to surf there, the Cove wasan incredibly dangerous place to surf.The Z-Boys surfed it anyway, thedangerous conditions only driving them on. They would surf in the mornings, when the waveswere the highest. When the pier waves died down after the early morning, they would hang outat the Gentle wind shop, running errands, doing homework, skating and flirting with passing girls. At that time, the Z-Boys saw skating as a hobby, something to do after surfing, but it quickly grew from a hobby into a new way to express themselves.
Shortly after this happened California experienced the biggest drought in history within that area. This meant that the locals pools were emptied as a use of water, the streets were dried up, and the place became more ghostly.
Although ‘Dogtown” seemed to be going down hill, it didn’t stop the Zephyr Surf team from making the most if it. They began what they called surfing on concrete, making hand made skateboards, skating the empty pools, ramps, the demolished pier, anything they could find. This then turned into the Zephyr Skate team, which started to add members, n 1975, Cahill, Pratt, Adams, Sarlo, Peralta and Alva asked Jeff Ho and Skip Engblom to start a skate team separate from the surf team. Soon after, local skaters Bob Biniak, Paul Constantineau, Jim Muir, Peggy Oki, Shogo Kubo and Wentzle Ruml would join the Zephyr skate team, growing to 12 members in all.
They began their own style, own culture, and own way of living.You could say they had nothing better to do, but coming form a demolished town they made the most of it, basically creating the sport of skateboarding.
