Up Front
A collection of news, views
and interviews from the edge
of skate culture.
Time
Warp
CHANNEL ONE
Scott Smiley and a
work posse pose
with their creation
before demolition.
Note banked walls
(below) offering
endless forever
possibilities.
Bowl Builders Busted
By Nels Grevstad
Imagine travelling across the country knowing that in each town there would be a
skateboard park, free-of-charge, with few (if any) restrictions. And each was built by
local skaters, so that no two would be alike. In Seattle, a group of about twenty-five of
us recently endeavored to make that dream a reality. Although our project has been
aborted, our efforts were not in vain.
The bowl expressed our desire to create and control our own skate environment, rather
than depending on someone else to do it for us. The project began when a few West Seattle
locals started digging a hole for a skateable pond under a bridge in Schmitz Park. As more
skaters got involved, we decided to make a full-size pool. We kept digging until everyone
was satisfied with the shape. There were disagreements such as how many coment blocks
of vertical we should add, and whether or not to have a "double pump" into the deep end.
The shape we finally came up with was a somewhat elongated kidney with a deep end of
about ten feet (including three blocks of vert), a shallow end of about six feet (with a 45°
banked section extending five feet higher) and a hip between the deep and shallow ends.
Next, we pounded stakes around the lip of the pool and nailed strips of 1x2 from stake to
stake to hold our rebar in place. We used number three rebar since it forms a perfect curve,
instead of kinks, as number four will do. The rebar was placed every foot and a half, hori-
zontally and vertically, two inches away from the dirt, so that the total thickness of the con-
crete would have been four inches. The surface was to be done with a standard trowel first,
followed by a magnesium float, and then a mahogany float for the final finish
(continued on page 22)
Seattle skaters cited
Alan "Ollie" Gelfand levitates his patented no-hands
aerial above the keyhole et Del Mar, circa 1978.
Ollie Inventor
Alan Gelfand
In the late seventies, a
skater from Florida
came to California and
changed the world.
His name is Alan Gelfand and his trump card was the
ollie air. This was the beginning of modern vertical rid-
ing and his no-hands air set the standard for all to
come. Phelps talked with the originator of the trick that
has become the most common word in skateboarding.
Did you invent the ollie?
Fuckin A, I did. It was the only trick ever invented that
nobody could do for, like, two years.
Why is it called the ollie?
Because that was a nickname that my friends, Jeff Duer
and Kevin Petersen gave me. I first did it at Skateboard
USA in 1978.
What do you think of it being the root of
modern skating?
It's funny. I race cars now, and one of my companies is Ole
Prep, and people always ask me if I stole the name from
skateboarding. It blows a lot of peoples minds when I tell
them "I'm Ofie
Do you still skate?
I skate to the store, that's about it. I went to visit McGill in
California and skated his park before it opened. I found out
that when you fall down now it hurts. I stopped competing
in 81 after I had a knee operation.
Can you still ollie on a ramp?
I skated this park in Daytona Beach, and all these little kids
are all, "You must have skated along time ago, man." I was
doing cess slides and little pogos. I know if I wanted to I
could, but my knees are still fucked-up from skating
Have you seen anyone else do it well?
The first person I saw that could do it was Brad Bowman at
the Del Mar Skateranch. He was doing little small ones way
down the wall. For two years, nobody could do it. I know
that it bugged the hell out of 'em. People used to come up
and look at my shoes, my griptape, ask questions and
scratch their heads and walk away.
Any favorite parks?
Marina was excellent and Lakewood had the best halfpipe
in the world. The first shots of me doing it were at Lake-
wood. I was wearing long pants, and Stecyk took the pho
tos. I hit him like four times in the head.
What was the early Powell scene like?
It was me and Stacy in the Volvo driving around to the
parks with little Tony Hawk. Hawk used to cry all the time
and say how much his knees hurt. McGill got fucked. Until
like two years ago, he had the same contract my dad's
lawyer wrote in 1979. I went out there about two years ago
and called them (Stacy and George) and they wouldn't
return my calls.
What happened after skating?
I got into cars and racing. I started in Autocross, and moved
on to Go-karts and on to Sports 2000. Endurance racing is
what I do now.
Do you ever miss skating?
Skating is a whole social scene. You get up and you want
to skate. When it became work, the thrill died and it wasn't
fun anymore.
FLAG 32x1.75
STINKBOMB 47
(1)
CIRCLE 32.25x8.875
FRED 44
COW 32.5x8.75
SEARCH AND RESCUE
DIAMOND 32.25x3.125
jamie hart begging for an ass kickin'
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14 THRASHER MAGAZIN