Editorial

HistorySkateboarding was prob-ably born sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s when surfers in California wanted something to surf when the waves were flat. No one knows who made the first board; it seems that several people came up with similar ideas at around the same time. These first skateboarders started with wooden boxes or boards with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom. The boxes turned into planks, and eventual-ly companies were pro-ducing decks of pressed layers of wood — similar to the skateboard decks of today. During this time, skateboarding was seen as something to do for fun besides surfing, and was therefore often called “side-walk surfing”. The first

manufactured skateboards were ordered by a Los Angeles, California surf shop, meant to be used by surfers in their down-time. The shop owner, Bill Richard, made a deal with the Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels, which they attached to square wood-en boards. Accordingly, skateboarding was orig-inally denoted “sidewalk surfing” and early skaters emulated surfing style and maneuvers. Crate scooters preceded skateboards, and were born of a similar concept, with the exception of having a wooden crate attached to the nose (front of the board), which formed rudimentary handlebars. A number of surfing manu-facturers such as Makaha started building skate-

boards that resembled small surfboards, and as-sembled teams to promote their products. The popu-larity of skateboarding at this time spawned a nation-al magazine, Skateboarder Magazine, and the 1965 international championships were broadcast on national television. The growth of the sport during this pe-riod can also be seen in sales figures for Makaha, which quoted $10 mil-lion worth of board sales be-tween

boards that resembled small surfboards, and as-sembled teams to promote their products. The popu-larity of skateboarding at this time spawned a nation-al magazine, Skateboarder Magazine, and the 1965 international championships were broadcast on national television. The growth of the sport during this pe-riod can also be seen in sales figures for Makaha, which quoted $10 mil-lion worth of board sales be-tween

1970sA skateboarder in Tallahassee, FloridaIn the early 1970s, Frank Naswor-thy started to develop a skateboard wheel made of polyurethane, calling his company Cadillac Wheels.[4] Pri-or to this new material, skateboards wheels were metal or “clay” wheels. The improvement in traction and per-formance was so immense that from the wheel’s release in 1972 the popu-larity of skateboarding started to rise rapidly again, causing companies to invest more in product development. Nasworthy commissioned artist Jim Evans to do a series of paintings pro-moting Cadillac Wheels, they were featured as ads and posters in the res-urrected Skateborder magazine, and proved immensely popular in promot-ing the new style of skateboarding. Many companies started to manufac-ture trucks (axles) specially designed for skateboarding, reached in 1976 by Tracker Trucks. As the equipment be-came more maneuverable, the decks started to get wider, reaching widths of 10 inches (250 mm) and over, thus giving the skateboarder even more control. A banana board is a skinny, flexible skateboard made of poly-propylene with ribs on the underside for structural support. These were very popular during the mid-1970s and were available in myriad colors, bright yellow probably being the most memorable, hence the name.

1980sThis period was fueled by skateboard companies that were run by skateboard-ers. The focus was initially on vert ramp skateboarding. The invention of the no-hands aerial (later known as the ollie) by Alan Gelfand in Florida in 1976,[6] and the almost parallel development of the grabbed aerial by George Orton and Tony Alva in California, made it possi-ble for skaters to perform airs on vertical ramps. While this wave of skateboard-ing was sparked by commercialized vert ramp skating, a majority of people who skateboarded during this period didn’t ride vert ramps. As most people could not afford to build vert ramps, or did not have access to nearby ramps, street skating increased in popularity.

Skate-board-

ing was popular-

ized by the 1986 skateboard-

ing cult classic Thrashin’, also known as Skate Gang directed by David Winters. It has appear-ances from many famous skaters such as Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Chris-tian Hosoi and Steve Ca

bal-lero. The film

starred Josh Brolin, who would go on to win acting awards for his roles in the films W., No Country for Old Men, Milk and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Thrashin’ also had a direct impact on Lords of Dogtown, as Catherine Hardwicke, who directed Lords of Dogtown, was hired by Winters to work on Thrashin’ as a produc-tion designer where she met, worked with and befriended many famous skaters including the real Tony Alva, Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi and Ste

Caballero.Skateboarding was, at first, tied to the culture of surfing. As skateboarding spread across the United States to places unfamil-iar with surfing or surfing culture, it developed an image of its own. For example, the classic film short Video Days (1991) portrayed skateboarders as reckless rebels.The image of the skate-boarder as a rebellious, non-conforming youth has faded in recent years.[citation need-ed] Certain cities still oppose the building of skateparks in their neighborhoods, for fear