CORRECTIONS/NOTES: The thumbnail here used to say "Inventing Street Skateboarding at EMB", but I changed it to reflect the fact that street skating was invented in multiple cities, although I do think EMB had a particularly heavy influence. To the scenes not given credit, my bad. At 2:58 the skater credited is Jeron Wilson; it's actually Richard Mulder, who had a guest trick in one of Wilson's early parts. My bad The switch 360 flip down the gap at 6:36 is Sean Sheffey. Happy to recommend the Thrasher series "This Old Ledge", which covers a lot of the same ground as this video. DEFINITELY check that out if you find this interesting. Very stoked to see this history being discussed on that big of a channel. ruclips.net/video/tV01JADspNo/видео.html This video is one of the oldest ones on my channel and there's a lot I would do differently if I made it today, both in the information and presentation. Bottom line, tho, I feel like kids these days have no idea about this stuff, and I made it in the hopes of it not being forgotten. As far as I'm aware in 2024, it tells that story decently enough.
Nice. I lived all this. Remember it like yesterday. I was just a kid enamored by EMB, Pier 7, Hubba, mini Hubba, Bay Blocks, Wallenberg, Ft. Miley. From age 12 till 17 or so, I spent all my time there skating around. My first trip into SF on the number 80, at age 12, I met Stevie Williams at Pier 7. He bummed a smoke from me. I didn’t realize then he was homeless. But I knew who he was!! MC always eluded me. I think I ran into him once when I was 14 at FTC, that’s it though…oh and later I watched him win a contest on his bday in Daily city I believe it was. But Karl, Henry, Ben, Chico, Mike York, Brad Johnson, and Pat Washington, I saw frequently skating, or bought decks from them, at Pier 7. I was in the Droors add sitting on the ledge in the Kalis sequence at Hubba. I was there when Lenny Kirk did some switch stuff on it. And as I stopped going to the city Brandon Biebel was starting to hang at 3rd and Army I recall. What a time and place. Still think about it all the time. Going there was magical and it made my skating level up. Then again, had I stayed at the Santa Rosa skatepark with Tony Trujillo, instead of abandoning my home park for city sessions, I probably would’ve been an even better skater. But I loved the streets of SF then, before it was woke, dot com, and yuppy.
@@matthewking7191 I don’t recall the Jesse guy. I never had run-ins with anyone really. I was like 12 when I started frequenting the city. People looked out for kids I feel like. We got chased by dirt bike cops a bit. A bummed got hit in the head with a skateboard at Pier 7 once I recall. That’s about it. Naked gay dudes fingering their butts on Market street. Typical SF stuff.
@@liquidpixel2055 rad. Didn’t Australia have a robust skate scene? I know I’ve listened to interviews with Sluggo, who’s a famous Aussie very guy, and it sounded like it was a struggle in Australia culturally because it was so low key and novel. I think Europe sorta had the same experience as the skate scene there was peripheral, if that’s not even being too generous. But, at the same time, that isolation probably added a mystique to skating, helped to foster an environment whereby, if you wanted it you’d have to be that much more creative and dedicated. I can’t name too many Aussie skaters but look at guys like Tom Penny from England, when again, Europe was barely on the skateboard radar too.
The emb influence went far and wide. I skated Liverpool England from late 80s through 90s and we had a spot that was popular coz it was a poor man's emb. Called, the tiles. Similar sound of a brick floor with steps, blocks etc. I loved it there.
EMB class of 96. Then the Pier started poppin. Hubba was always there, a lone ledge on a small inner city hill. Well done bro... The Embarcadero freeway was an eyesore. Union Square was cool but turned a bust and the library was cool, at night it was poppin.
I skated EMB in 1987. I learned kick flips and brought them back to the midwest. It was right after Gonz did the gap, but I could not make sense out of it when people showed it to me. I was like, that's not possible. It's not like there was footage to review, you just heard about it.
I’m from the Bay. I remember watching every big named skater come through, especially during “Back to the City”. I was fortunate to have started skating in the 80’s and got “mini sponsored” by a couple of local shops…. FTC was our go to shop in the city. San Jose is where I’m from and the spots there were just as iconic. Great video….. I’d love to send you a video of us at EMB and Wallenberg. Our video is called Chunky Caca……
I think for anyone outside of California, EMB captures the 90s vibe more than anywhere else. I'm from the midwest and while i was aware of all the LA and NY spots and love park etc, none of them existed in my mind as a scene the way EMB did. It was the only one you could describe as a mecca. So while I'm sure there was a lot happening elsewhere, EMB will always retain its status as the epicenter of early 90s skating innovation
When i got into skateboarding at 13 years old in '97 or '98, I would read Thrasher and Transworld and I'd consistently read stories about this place called EMB and the Gonz Gap. After watching a ton of skate videos it dawned on me that the place with all the bricks people were skating WAS EMB. Unfortunately, by that time that era was pretty much already over. I remember seeing someone do a kickflip melon over the Gonz Gap in a Transworld video (Feedback or Modus, David Gonzalez?) and I heard it was basically the last trick to go down across that gap forever before they tore out "the wave" and remodeled the plaza. I remember being a kid and wishing I had a plaza like that to skate.
I was 4½ in 1984 when I got my first Skateboard and watching a skate video in 1988 with skateboarder shredding the San Francisco spots. I'd beg my parents "Can we go to San Francisco, I wanna skate some spots" living about a 1000 miles away I knew the answer was always "No" until 1991 my parents walked up and said "Let's go to San Francisco in two weeks" I was so freaking excited to finally skate these spots. I didn't know about getting kicked out of places but yeah, I got kicked out of almost every spots. Even tho I got kicked out of spots I was just stoked standing there and actually seeing the spots.
Very interesting sociological and anthropological take on the significance of SF skate spot history, but LA had several iconic spots and also had just as much to do with the pioneering years of street skating. That’s not even taking Orange County and San Diego into account, but yeah. It wasn’t solely SF that’s responsible for the evolution of street skating, even if it was super significant. If you consider all the watershed moments and iconic videos, there’s lots of Santa Monic Courthouse, Lockwood, Beneficial (later known as J Kwon) and other Wilshire adjacent spots, Thomas Starr King Middle School, Hollywood/Vine/Sunset Walk of Fame, Fletcher Bowron Square/Los Angeles Mall brick banks, etc.
Hey, yeah I have a few responses to this. LA has obviously always played a part in street skateboarding's evolution, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. However there's a difference between invention and evolution, and a ton of tricks that had never been done before were first done at EMB. The main innovation in this era was the difference between slappying into a grind - on a curb, let's say - and ollieing into a grind, and the possibilities there were heavily explored at EMB. SoCal skaters were a part of that exploration, both coming up to SF and down in LA itself, but the late 80s/early 90s weren't like today where everything spreads like wildfire online, and I'm pretty sure EMB was the main location for the earliest innovations. Also some of the spots you mentioned were busts, or at least couldn't be skated at certain times (like school hours), whereas EMB seems to have been open unless the cops were temporarily there. And I don't remember seeing ledges in early Walk of Fame footage, although I could be wrong. The brick banks were transition, not ledges, so there wasn't as much innovation going on skating them even though they definitely were out 'in the wild'. In any case, I'm positive there WAS innovation happening at these spots, just not as much as at EMB. But one thing that stands out to me about EMB is that it was in a ton more videos in the early era than the Courthouse or Lockwood, or any one LA spot really. The Southland has more spots than the Bay Area just because of its size, but what happened at EMB didn't happen in the Graffiti Pits for whatever reason. The draw to the spot that this footage created is probably what made EMB the place to be; that draw snowballed, and more kids showed up (some of them are commenting here, obviously). So it may have just been momentum that made the spot what it is and brought kids from all over the world together. That's a lot, but there you go. But I'm not an expert, for sure.
@@saxenas Asking who invented that is like asking who invented the internet. It took a lot of people and a lot of time to get skateboarding to the form it's in today. EMB was a place that saw a ton of creative kids roll through from all over and build up most of the foundation for modern skating, but that doesn't mean skaters in other places weren't contributing as well. It's not a question with an answer.
@@theothermap But were there skaters skating street in los angeles before sf? Like even the most basic of modern day street skating. I get that a lot of innovation happened in SF, but where was the first street skate scene who was doing it first or was it happening in both areas at the same time
@@saxenas Again, there's not really an answer. People in both cities (and all over the world) bombed hills waaaay back in the day - does that count? Once pool skating started going, people were skating natural transition spots everywhere - is that street skating? Jon Lucero is known for applying lip tricks to curbs, so there's that in SoCal, but ledge skating is from SF. The first handrail was skated in 1986 in NYC I think? Bottom line it's not an LA or SF thing, it started gradually. So the answer to "SF or LA" is no.
The giant gap you referred to @ 6:40 is called The Gonz Gap , as Mark Gonzales was the first to ollie it. Then years later Gonz was also the first to kickflip it too. Video doesnt do it justice, it is/was a HUGE gap.
Fair enough on the doing it justice part, the Gonz was huge. I'm not sure footage of the ollie exists, but I probably should have put the kickflip in this. Mark was definitely a big part of EMB lore
Laughing at my little kid self when using the term hubba to describe high ledges sloping down along stairs lol. Also step-up aka euro gap. Crazy how we just take those names in without questioning them.
@@theothermap Just being picky skate geek. But I watched your piece for research for a doc I'm finishing up...headed back up to the Bay in few weeks...incredible scene. Your piece is dope, so I didn't want you to think I was being over critical...Keep posting!!!!
@@TheNiggyStardust That's sick you're doing a doc, skate culture needs more documentation - I still miss Epicly Later'd. Fellow skate geek here, I think eventually I just realized I was going to have to leave people out tho. The other option was going through that Greatest Misses video and putting every name in. And thanks man, I'm on it
I used to give Pat my fries from Carl’s Jr. He’d chew them all up and shove them into the side of his mouth and save them there like chew. I didn’t know he was homeless till Stevie started to talk about his running away to SF. I was just a young teen then, but Pier 7 was the spot. If you were a kid looking for a board, you’d get a used deck cheap there. I remember Karl throwing a ProFile deck off the pier and my buddy stripping down to dive in and get it. Lol. Amazing times.
Love this vid. SF skaters are a different breed. Interesting how you bring out the connection BTW Skate evolution and the unique environment of the city. Why don't you think you and Phelps would have been friends?
@@crowfriend6089 Oh yeah, and the mag is a huge part of skateboarding and a lot of that was him for decades. He did a lot for skating, way more than most pros. Really hope he isn't forgotten down the line.
I grew up skating NYC IN THE LATE 80,$ and 90,s. I think dudes like Shawn Sheff , Barkker B . , Harry Jumonji ,Rodney Smith Jeff Pang ,Huff & the SHUT crew had as much to do with modern street skating as anything from SF. For sure SF was and is the MECCA for sure but guys were kicking off shit in NYC I’d say at the exact same time and then those guys were heading to CALI for the money ..unfortunately we just didn’t have the infrastructure and culture monetarily speaking. Let’s put it this way. Where does Gonz live ? 😂 just Talkin trash .. I just think NYC never really got the hype or backing that the LEFT coast got. Guys like RODNEY & ELI , BRUNNO & PANG had to make it or take it and force others to see that we had a epic skate culture. Peace & love to all NYC heads. Too many to name. Big Mike ✌️
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah I mean the first handrail was skated in NYC for sure, that scene played a big role in skate history. I probably could have given NY (and SoCal) more credit in the video, in retrospect, but I'd have to totally redo it. I may end up doing an NY scene vid tho. Thanks for commenting
Literally every detail in this history is wrong but I will stick to the history of street skating. It did not start in the EMB or even in San Franshithole. Street skating today represents the legacy of two distinct traditions or waves. Street skating started in the late seventies or early eighties (hard to pinpoint) and was made up of a mixture of techniques from transition and freestyle. It’s hallmarks we’re tricks like slappy grinds, foot plant tricks, power slides, no complies and the like. The second wave is 100% the child of John Rodney Mullen. Street skaters started adapting Rodney’s popped tricks and skateboarding was transformed forever. With the adoption of tricks like ollies, kick flips, etc, skateboarders we’re able to skate rails and stairs and ledges and the modern era was born. EMB was a center of innovation but it was NOT the genesis.
I think you're confusing 'street skateboarding' with all skateboarding outside of ramp skating, but regardless that's a good point. I changed the thumbnail in response. I find it hard to believe that 'literally every detail' in the video is wrong, but if you have other notes let me know.
@@theothermap it’s really too much to go into but my suggestion would be to read a lot of sources you don’t agree with or haven’t yet for whatever reason. You have a view of history that any leftist historian at any university would give you an A for and yet would be refuted in seconds by someone like Thomas Sowell. It’s possible he might get this or that wrong too but the truth lies at least midway in between. Regarding skating I am definitely not thinking of anything other than street. The only thing other than ramp skating that isn’t street would be freestyle (leaving out anything done on a longboard) and that is not what I am talking about but that is where the second wave of street starts. The ollie tricks that form the basis of modern street skating were invented by Rodney Mullen in his freestyle days. I’m not sure about 180 Ollie’s but he invented the popped ollie (I would argue he invented the ollie full stop but that’s another long discussion and hinges on what IS an ollie) the kick flip, the heal flip and the 360 flip. That is the basis of modern street skating. The first guys who ollied up to grind a rail or a ledge where inspired to try that after seeing Rodney. Jason Lee mastered the 360 flip because he saw Rodney do it. Rodney invented that stuff in the early 80’s and by the early 90’s the rest of us started to figure it all out and apply it to obstacles.
CORRECTIONS/NOTES:
The thumbnail here used to say "Inventing Street Skateboarding at EMB", but I changed it to reflect the fact that street skating was invented in multiple cities, although I do think EMB had a particularly heavy influence. To the scenes not given credit, my bad.
At 2:58 the skater credited is Jeron Wilson; it's actually Richard Mulder, who had a guest trick in one of Wilson's early parts. My bad
The switch 360 flip down the gap at 6:36 is Sean Sheffey.
Happy to recommend the Thrasher series "This Old Ledge", which covers a lot of the same ground as this video. DEFINITELY check that out if you find this interesting. Very stoked to see this history being discussed on that big of a channel.
ruclips.net/video/tV01JADspNo/видео.html
This video is one of the oldest ones on my channel and there's a lot I would do differently if I made it today, both in the information and presentation. Bottom line, tho, I feel like kids these days have no idea about this stuff, and I made it in the hopes of it not being forgotten. As far as I'm aware in 2024, it tells that story decently enough.
Nice. I lived all this. Remember it like yesterday. I was just a kid enamored by EMB, Pier 7, Hubba, mini Hubba, Bay Blocks, Wallenberg, Ft. Miley. From age 12 till 17 or so, I spent all my time there skating around. My first trip into SF on the number 80, at age 12, I met Stevie Williams at Pier 7. He bummed a smoke from me. I didn’t realize then he was homeless. But I knew who he was!! MC always eluded me. I think I ran into him once when I was 14 at FTC, that’s it though…oh and later I watched him win a contest on his bday in Daily city I believe it was. But Karl, Henry, Ben, Chico, Mike York, Brad Johnson, and Pat Washington, I saw frequently skating, or bought decks from them, at Pier 7. I was in the Droors add sitting on the ledge in the Kalis sequence at Hubba. I was there when Lenny Kirk did some switch stuff on it. And as I stopped going to the city Brandon Biebel was starting to hang at 3rd and Army I recall. What a time and place. Still think about it all the time. Going there was magical and it made my skating level up. Then again, had I stayed at the Santa Rosa skatepark with Tony Trujillo, instead of abandoning my home park for city sessions, I probably would’ve been an even better skater. But I loved the streets of SF then, before it was woke, dot com, and yuppy.
Woooow! That’s amazing! I can only imagine how dope it was seeing all that happen! I’m really psyched for you!
Any run-ins with Jesse Driggs aka Wheatberry? lol that must've been an awesome time. Lenny Kirk was ahead of his time. Too bad what happened to him.
@@matthewking7191 I don’t recall the Jesse guy. I never had run-ins with anyone really. I was like 12 when I started frequenting the city. People looked out for kids I feel like. We got chased by dirt bike cops a bit. A bummed got hit in the head with a skateboard at Pier 7 once I recall. That’s about it. Naked gay dudes fingering their butts on Market street. Typical SF stuff.
Mate, that is epic.. little kids from Australia could only dream of such things
@@liquidpixel2055 rad. Didn’t Australia have a robust skate scene? I know I’ve listened to interviews with Sluggo, who’s a famous Aussie very guy, and it sounded like it was a struggle in Australia culturally because it was so low key and novel. I think Europe sorta had the same experience as the skate scene there was peripheral, if that’s not even being too generous. But, at the same time, that isolation probably added a mystique to skating, helped to foster an environment whereby, if you wanted it you’d have to be that much more creative and dedicated. I can’t name too many Aussie skaters but look at guys like Tom Penny from England, when again, Europe was barely on the skateboard radar too.
The emb influence went far and wide. I skated Liverpool England from late 80s through 90s and we had a spot that was popular coz it was a poor man's emb. Called, the tiles. Similar sound of a brick floor with steps, blocks etc. I loved it there.
damn this is a beautifully made history lesson. thank you
Fantastic video man (deserves more views)!
EMB class of 96. Then the Pier started poppin. Hubba was always there, a lone ledge on a small inner city hill. Well done bro... The Embarcadero freeway was an eyesore. Union Square was cool but turned a bust and the library was cool, at night it was poppin.
I skated EMB in 1987. I learned kick flips and brought them back to the midwest. It was right after Gonz did the gap, but I could not make sense out of it when people showed it to me. I was like, that's not possible. It's not like there was footage to review, you just heard about it.
I’m from the Bay. I remember watching every big named skater come through, especially during “Back to the City”. I was fortunate to have started skating in the 80’s and got “mini sponsored” by a couple of local shops…. FTC was our go to shop in the city. San Jose is where I’m from and the spots there were just as iconic. Great video….. I’d love to send you a video of us at EMB and Wallenberg. Our video is called Chunky Caca……
took me 30mins to find this, came across it when you first uploaded in related videos.
10/10
subscribed and liked
I think for anyone outside of California, EMB captures the 90s vibe more than anywhere else. I'm from the midwest and while i was aware of all the LA and NY spots and love park etc, none of them existed in my mind as a scene the way EMB did. It was the only one you could describe as a mecca. So while I'm sure there was a lot happening elsewhere, EMB will always retain its status as the epicenter of early 90s skating innovation
I never made it to EMB but I used to skate at LOVE Park in the 90s all the time.
When i got into skateboarding at 13 years old in '97 or '98, I would read Thrasher and Transworld and I'd consistently read stories about this place called EMB and the Gonz Gap. After watching a ton of skate videos it dawned on me that the place with all the bricks people were skating WAS EMB. Unfortunately, by that time that era was pretty much already over. I remember seeing someone do a kickflip melon over the Gonz Gap in a Transworld video (Feedback or Modus, David Gonzalez?) and I heard it was basically the last trick to go down across that gap forever before they tore out "the wave" and remodeled the plaza. I remember being a kid and wishing I had a plaza like that to skate.
This is the best video I've seen from this guy.
I was 4½ in 1984 when I got my first Skateboard and watching a skate video in 1988 with skateboarder shredding the San Francisco spots. I'd beg my parents "Can we go to San Francisco, I wanna skate some spots" living about a 1000 miles away I knew the answer was always "No" until 1991 my parents walked up and said "Let's go to San Francisco in two weeks" I was so freaking excited to finally skate these spots. I didn't know about getting kicked out of places but yeah, I got kicked out of almost every spots. Even tho I got kicked out of spots I was just stoked standing there and actually seeing the spots.
Remember "The Dish" and half pipe in an abandoned property in Hunters Point?
Had to be careful...
Rick Oyola is so slept on. Fuckin chest high back tails 💀
my first skate tape was the real video, from ‘93/’94 which was filmed all over San Fran. This was a cool history lesson.
great video, shame it doesnt have anymore views. btw sean sheffey's the one who does the (switch) 360 flip down the gap at 6:36
Noted in the description, thanks.
great work on this!
Wow! Amazing video! Great job! Thank you so much for this! ✊🏼
EXCELLENT! Thoughtfully researched and presented. The producer of this is a historian and scholar.
Thanks man, it's really surprising how few people care about documenting this era, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
Very interesting sociological and anthropological take on the significance of SF skate spot history, but LA had several iconic spots and also had just as much to do with the pioneering years of street skating. That’s not even taking Orange County and San Diego into account, but yeah. It wasn’t solely SF that’s responsible for the evolution of street skating, even if it was super significant.
If you consider all the watershed moments and iconic videos, there’s lots of Santa Monic Courthouse, Lockwood, Beneficial (later known as J Kwon) and other Wilshire adjacent spots, Thomas Starr King Middle School, Hollywood/Vine/Sunset Walk of Fame, Fletcher Bowron Square/Los Angeles Mall brick banks, etc.
Hey, yeah I have a few responses to this. LA has obviously always played a part in street skateboarding's evolution, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. However there's a difference between invention and evolution, and a ton of tricks that had never been done before were first done at EMB.
The main innovation in this era was the difference between slappying into a grind - on a curb, let's say - and ollieing into a grind, and the possibilities there were heavily explored at EMB. SoCal skaters were a part of that exploration, both coming up to SF and down in LA itself, but the late 80s/early 90s weren't like today where everything spreads like wildfire online, and I'm pretty sure EMB was the main location for the earliest innovations.
Also some of the spots you mentioned were busts, or at least couldn't be skated at certain times (like school hours), whereas EMB seems to have been open unless the cops were temporarily there. And I don't remember seeing ledges in early Walk of Fame footage, although I could be wrong. The brick banks were transition, not ledges, so there wasn't as much innovation going on skating them even though they definitely were out 'in the wild'. In any case, I'm positive there WAS innovation happening at these spots, just not as much as at EMB.
But one thing that stands out to me about EMB is that it was in a ton more videos in the early era than the Courthouse or Lockwood, or any one LA spot really. The Southland has more spots than the Bay Area just because of its size, but what happened at EMB didn't happen in the Graffiti Pits for whatever reason. The draw to the spot that this footage created is probably what made EMB the place to be; that draw snowballed, and more kids showed up (some of them are commenting here, obviously). So it may have just been momentum that made the spot what it is and brought kids from all over the world together.
That's a lot, but there you go. But I'm not an expert, for sure.
@@theothermap so was street skating invented in sf or la?
@@saxenas Asking who invented that is like asking who invented the internet. It took a lot of people and a lot of time to get skateboarding to the form it's in today. EMB was a place that saw a ton of creative kids roll through from all over and build up most of the foundation for modern skating, but that doesn't mean skaters in other places weren't contributing as well. It's not a question with an answer.
@@theothermap But were there skaters skating street in los angeles before sf? Like even the most basic of modern day street skating. I get that a lot of innovation happened in SF, but where was the first street skate scene who was doing it first or was it happening in both areas at the same time
@@saxenas Again, there's not really an answer. People in both cities (and all over the world) bombed hills waaaay back in the day - does that count? Once pool skating started going, people were skating natural transition spots everywhere - is that street skating? Jon Lucero is known for applying lip tricks to curbs, so there's that in SoCal, but ledge skating is from SF. The first handrail was skated in 1986 in NYC I think? Bottom line it's not an LA or SF thing, it started gradually. So the answer to "SF or LA" is no.
Drake Jones was originally a White Plains, NY skateboarder.
The giant gap you referred to @ 6:40 is called The Gonz Gap , as Mark Gonzales was the first to ollie it. Then years later Gonz was also the first to kickflip it too. Video doesnt do it justice, it is/was a HUGE gap.
Fair enough on the doing it justice part, the Gonz was huge. I'm not sure footage of the ollie exists, but I probably should have put the kickflip in this. Mark was definitely a big part of EMB lore
Gonz channel we called it 🙏🏽🤷 pre 1989.
Great video
Amazing stuff, thank you so much fo the vidiooo
I remember skateboarding in the 70s and 80s when we only had one kicktail
People are still skating pier 7. Brian Peacock just did probably the most fucked up line ever done there in the Primitive video.
"#EMBARCO'$MOSTBLUNTED"
Well done.... I'm surprised I'm just now seeing this for the first time....
Well done! Needs to be known.
I skated EMB before 1991. It wuz a great spot
Laughing at my little kid self when using the term hubba to describe high ledges sloping down along stairs lol. Also step-up aka euro gap. Crazy how we just take those names in without questioning them.
Thee fakie 5.0 kick flip out on the terminator 2 board would have really put a bow on it. Ya undadig.
Where's the love for Pat Washington? Marcus? Watson? Pastras? Lee Smith? Nice history, but you left out some "trues"
You're totally right, I could have gone deeper into that stuff. My bad to anyone left out.
@@theothermap Just being picky skate geek. But I watched your piece for research for a doc I'm finishing up...headed back up to the Bay in few weeks...incredible scene. Your piece is dope, so I didn't want you to think I was being over critical...Keep posting!!!!
@@TheNiggyStardust That's sick you're doing a doc, skate culture needs more documentation - I still miss Epicly Later'd. Fellow skate geek here, I think eventually I just realized I was going to have to leave people out tho. The other option was going through that Greatest Misses video and putting every name in. And thanks man, I'm on it
I used to give Pat my fries from Carl’s Jr. He’d chew them all up and shove them into the side of his mouth and save them there like chew. I didn’t know he was homeless till Stevie started to talk about his running away to SF. I was just a young teen then, but Pier 7 was the spot. If you were a kid looking for a board, you’d get a used deck cheap there. I remember Karl throwing a ProFile deck off the pier and my buddy stripping down to dive in and get it. Lol. Amazing times.
Love this vid. SF skaters are a different breed. Interesting how you bring out the connection BTW Skate evolution and the unique environment of the city. Why don't you think you and Phelps would have been friends?
Thanks man, and idk what was going through my mind when I wrote that part tbh. Respect to that dude
@@theothermap ha! Yes. Not so easy to get along with but you have to love someone who loves skating so much!
@@crowfriend6089 Oh yeah, and the mag is a huge part of skateboarding and a lot of that was him for decades. He did a lot for skating, way more than most pros. Really hope he isn't forgotten down the line.
this was a damn good video
That was richard mulder, not jeron wilson
A guest trick in Jeron's 'Finally' part?
ruclips.net/video/KCfvR4jf1dE/видео.html
Hope you can understand my confusion on that.
@@theothermap yup
Sick!
That's cool history not mention the level!
Awesome
Anyone who rides a skateboard should see this.
I grew up skating NYC IN THE LATE 80,$ and 90,s. I think dudes like Shawn Sheff , Barkker B . , Harry Jumonji ,Rodney Smith Jeff Pang ,Huff & the SHUT crew had as much to do with modern street skating as anything from SF.
For sure SF was and is the MECCA for sure but guys were kicking off shit in NYC I’d say at the exact same time and then those guys were heading to CALI for the money ..unfortunately we just didn’t have the infrastructure and culture monetarily speaking.
Let’s put it this way. Where does Gonz live ? 😂 just Talkin trash ..
I just think NYC never really got the hype or backing that the LEFT coast got. Guys like RODNEY & ELI , BRUNNO & PANG had to make it or take it and force others to see that we had a epic skate culture.
Peace & love to all NYC heads. Too many to name.
Big Mike ✌️
Interesting, so skaters were leaving NY for SF during that time due to skate media being in CA?
Yup but more for the money that was being offered. All the big skate companies were in CALI. NY had 1. SHUT SKATEBOARDS.
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah I mean the first handrail was skated in NYC for sure, that scene played a big role in skate history. I probably could have given NY (and SoCal) more credit in the video, in retrospect, but I'd have to totally redo it. I may end up doing an NY scene vid tho. Thanks for commenting
Why u say you wouldn't have been friends with Phelps lol
I mean who knows, but while I have a lot of respect for the guy, he was something else
@@theothermap yea he was skateboardings asshole drunk uncle, but we need him more than ever … miss that generation of hecklers
lol everyone everywhere has always said hubba to refer to crack.
Fair enough, I thought it was just the Bay. That makes it a little funnier even
Definitely not in the Midwest! In Chicago they’re just rocks.
@@rnfr I grew up in Bmore and we said hubbas. Ready rock was the first slang i remember but hubba definitely entered the lexicon
The EMB scene was an amazing part of skateboarding but hardly the birth place of street skating.
You're right, and I changed the thumbnail to reflect that.
Crazy police were there back then for skaters. Now days 30 years later ppl can loot a store. Rob ppl and break in cars and nothing is done about it
❤
Literally every detail in this history is wrong but I will stick to the history of street skating. It did not start in the EMB or even in San Franshithole. Street skating today represents the legacy of two distinct traditions or waves. Street skating started in the late seventies or early eighties (hard to pinpoint) and was made up of a mixture of techniques from transition and freestyle. It’s hallmarks we’re tricks like slappy grinds, foot plant tricks, power slides, no complies and the like. The second wave is 100% the child of John Rodney Mullen. Street skaters started adapting Rodney’s popped tricks and skateboarding was transformed forever. With the adoption of tricks like ollies, kick flips, etc, skateboarders we’re able to skate rails and stairs and ledges and the modern era was born. EMB was a center of innovation but it was NOT the genesis.
I think you're confusing 'street skateboarding' with all skateboarding outside of ramp skating, but regardless that's a good point. I changed the thumbnail in response. I find it hard to believe that 'literally every detail' in the video is wrong, but if you have other notes let me know.
@@theothermap it’s really too much to go into but my suggestion would be to read a lot of sources you don’t agree with or haven’t yet for whatever reason. You have a view of history that any leftist historian at any university would give you an A for and yet would be refuted in seconds by someone like Thomas Sowell. It’s possible he might get this or that wrong too but the truth lies at least midway in between. Regarding skating I am definitely not thinking of anything other than street. The only thing other than ramp skating that isn’t street would be freestyle (leaving out anything done on a longboard) and that is not what I am talking about but that is where the second wave of street starts. The ollie tricks that form the basis of modern street skating were invented by Rodney Mullen in his freestyle days. I’m not sure about 180 Ollie’s but he invented the popped ollie (I would argue he invented the ollie full stop but that’s another long discussion and hinges on what IS an ollie) the kick flip, the heal flip and the 360 flip. That is the basis of modern street skating. The first guys who ollied up to grind a rail or a ledge where inspired to try that after seeing Rodney. Jason Lee mastered the 360 flip because he saw Rodney do it. Rodney invented that stuff in the early 80’s and by the early 90’s the rest of us started to figure it all out and apply it to obstacles.
I wanna know why he wouldn’t have been friends with Phelps
This ignores so much of the history to give SF all the credit
What all history is being ignored?