TWS 10: Legendary Swimming Pools
ericstricker
- May 05 2009
- 12,491 views
- 25 comments
Lists of legendary backyard bowls are like chronic hippers—every pool-cruster has one. Nostalgia runs deep and opinions differ. But when you boil it down, a handful of all-time pits always rise above the scum line.—Keith Hamm
1. Buena Vista—Watsonville, California
Bill’s Wheels shop owner Bill Ackerman and his buddies dug it out in 1976, fearing the Psycho Woodcutter, a squatter who’d run them off with an axe. Unearthed again in ’87, Buena hosted summer contests, carloads of San Jose’s best, and Andy Roy boosting frontside corner bonelesses to disaster.
STEVE CAB IN BAN THIS:
2. Vagabond—Fresno, California
For years, this kidney was the only reason to stop in Fresno while driving through the fertile San Joaquin Valley. Then a crew of bowl dogs moved there, reaping a bounty of backyard fruit. Fresno went from pit stop to destination, even more so when locals sculpted concrete hits surrounding the pool.
LOCALS:
3. Bastrop—Bastrop, Texas
The Camp Swift military base just east of Austin was decommissioned shortly after WWII. Decades later, skaters infiltrated the property’s five outsize pools. The Country Club pool, featuring 45-degree walls, “was like skating a huge bank,” remembers John Gibson. “And it had this tile lip you could really grind the crap out of.” These days, Bastrop’s Grinder Ledge keeps the war alive with D.I.Y. concrete additions.
NIKE SB TEAM:
4. Pink Motel—San Fernando, California
She ain’t got the sweetest shallow but this pink fish has seen so much action that you can’t deny her a place among the hallowed holes. First skated in the late 70s, it reached skate-flick fame in Animal Chin and still hosts blowouts, birthday parties, and numerous photo shoots.
FOURSTAR TEAM:
5. Dog Bowl—Santa Monica, California
When a kid with cancer drained the family pool for the Dogtown crew, skateboarding would never be the same. With bust-potential at zero, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, and the rest honed their collective progression—including Alva’s invention of the frontside air—in front of cameramen Craig Stecyk and Glen Friedman.
OG DOGTOWN CREW:
6. Band-X—Jacksonville, Florida
When the Christensons drained their roomy oval for maintenance in the early 80s, Kona locals hopped the fence when nobody was home. Drained again in the late 80s, the scene blew up. “My parents were really laid back and didn’t care,” says Brian Christenson, who marketed a waterproof watchband, Band-X, with a face-wall logo. Eldest son Kevin now holds the keys. “It’s in pristine shape with water in it,” says Brian. “But there might be a skate reunion someday.”
BAND X FOOTAGE IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND, SO HERE’S SOME CLASSIC NEARBY KONA FOOTAGE INSTEAD:
7. Fruit Bowl—Garden Grove, California
Named after the nearby insane asylum, this pool “had the most influence, by far” on the progression of pool skating, says Lance Mountain. Situated near the round-wall epicenters of Dogtown, the Valley, Down South, and the Badlands, this is where all the badasses got together to put their moves where their mouths were.
NO YOUTUBE LINK, BUT HERE’S A LINK TO FOOTAGE:
8. San Juan—San Juan Capistrano, California
“I sucked the hose to drain it,” remembers Dave Duncan, who got tipped off in 1987 about an abandoned mansion. For days, the dropping waterline slowly revealed the wide-open keyhole. Once dry, he says, “it was backyard annihilation,” as heads convened to grind the polished pebble coping.
DAVE DUNCAN AT THE SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO POOL, 1988. Photo from galleri.skateboard.dk.
9. C Bowl—Cambridge, Massachusetts
According to Kevin Day, the earliest sessions at this fully operational public swimming pool went down in 1975. Shaped like a giant letter C, the deep end features nine-foot trannies to a kink to three feet of vert. Add cracks, seeps, and an eroding surface, and you’ve got a pit where the ride is about survival. Status: still going, except between the Fourth of July and Labor Day, when it’s full of water. How many spots can you think of that have been skated for 34 years?
SOME YOUNG KIDS GETTING THEIRS:
10. Nude Bowl—Desert Hot Springs, California
In the mid 80s, Jeremiah Risk’s parents hinted at a pool where nudists basked poolside in the 70s. It took Risk a week to locate the desert virgin, and he rode it for a year before breaking the silence. Despite biting winds and scorching heat, the scene ruled: dirt-road approach, bathhouse ruins, blazing guns, all-night acid drops, Lucky Lager, and generator-powered mullet metal. Then one fateful night, teenage ragers squared off against monster-truck jocks, some kid got shanked in the heart, and the cops buried the place.
NUDE BOWL RUMORS AND PARTIES:
The Nude Bowl. Photo: Brittain
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May 5th, 2009 at 9:58 am
yes, i have skated nude bowl many a time. i have also seen my best friend have the worst acid trip of his life screaming ‘bank of america’ as he dove into the deep end naked.
May 5th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Holy crap! That was our party. And unfortunately that was the homie Tommy that was stabbed in the chest. Four of our friends were stabbed by the same sketchy desert tweeker that night.R.I.P. Nude bowl. I will never forget those sessions.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:06 am
awesome spots.
really old school…
o yeah…………SECOND!!!
May 5th, 2009 at 11:10 am
third…
May 5th, 2009 at 11:45 am
omgeeeee sooooo coool all those bowls
May 5th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
agreed
May 5th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
kooks
May 5th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
so gnarly, footage for the fruit bowl was sick. gotta love a blast from the past
May 6th, 2009 at 12:13 am
i helped dig out buena vista in 2003!!! but then they filled it back in 4 months later. 68 skate for life, banch crue!!!!!
May 6th, 2009 at 2:41 am
skatebord is mass children game nowadays
all will be gone
May 6th, 2009 at 8:44 am
this is pretty cool sh!t
May 6th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Jungle Bowl.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
haha…tony hawks 4
May 9th, 2009 at 6:34 am
nude bowl resurrection!
May 9th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
you sure it was his worst trip of his life? sounds like the best to me
May 9th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
some tweeker stabbed more than one person there?!?! and didnt get killed!?! tell me more
August 25th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Ahhh Bastrop Pools…have pics and videos of the big bastrop pools that were sessioned through the 70's to 90's, will have to find and post those. Of note is Dan Wilkes legendary foot plant off the set back diving board base and the carve sessions around the roaring deepend midnight bonfires…
September 23rd, 2009 at 7:16 am
A SUPPORTED BY THE DEVELOPER TOOLS? It was interesting. You seem very knowledgeable in ypour field.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink - bookmark this site? Regards, Reader.
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