M.
Turtles' wading pool bears with a boardslide by Rob Gangemi.
tion turned into a nightmare. The locals all called it Larry's
Pay Toilet or Shooting Shit. It was an above-ground indoor
shotcrete mountain that looked as if someone formed a
bunch of chicken wire, smoked some dust and just started
spraying cement all over the place. It was way over-priced
and constantly surrounded by the locals who came for the
arcade and pool tables, not the skating. These guys were
86
known as "psychos" or, in Boston,
"townies." It was not uncommon to pull
into the parking lot and see a huge fight
or a car on fire or a decapitated cat
waiting for the skaters. Malden had a
"pool," a "halfpipe" and all the buzz-
words that pertain to skateparks, but
when you were riding it, "dust storm"
was the only phrase that came to mind.
Concrete dust would build up in your
nose, eyes and mouth until you feared
suffocation. It was a blessing for the
skaters when Malden closed in 1979.
In 1980-81 skateparks basically
ceased to exist on the East Coast.
Cherry Hill, the greatest skatepark ever.
closed, and once again skating went
underground and backyard. While street
skating was usually a way for getting
from Point A to Point B, ramp skating
became mandatory. In Boston the winter
is super cold and the summer is very
humid, so it is not hard to understand
why ramps came and went frequently.
Jeff Smith's Concord halfpipe was the
most-sessioned halfpipe at this time. It
was 16 feet wide with two high sides, two
low sides and no flat. We skated this
egg-shaped structure weekend warrior
style: work during the week, then travel
25 miles to catch air on the weekends.
In 1981, Boston hosted a a hardcore
uprising. While skating seemed like a
weekend thing, the new hardcore deal
was happening constantly. We would still
skate to shows, but due to weather and
lack of riding surface, other skate activity
decreased. Bands like SSD, DYS, FUS,
Gang Green and Jerrys Kids took the
energy that was usually focused on
skating into clubs. We would still skate
the pool now and then (weather and
cops permitting), but we didn't see a lot
of other skaters in town..
When Gluehead moved to Boston
from Madison, Wisconsin, it made the
skating much more dangerous. He in-
stilled the dark side in all of the skaters.
We were more into getting "punk" than any of this trick-
to-trick bullshit so prevalent in today's skating. We would
skate to the shows, trash everything in sight and skate
home. How simple.
Along about this time a young punker kid named Sean
McLean built the first ramp with flatbottom and we couldn't
get enough. We'd skate all summer and trued on page (16)
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