Wednesday, September 25

Seattle Spot Check

By Marshall "Stack" Reid
EXPN.com

Editor's Note: For this piece Marshall was kind enough to grace us with his uber-local's knowledge of Seattle and it's spots. You can find Marshall managing/filming the Manik Skateboard Team and producing one of this nation's largest Am events - The Sound and the Fury.

Although Seattle has received world renown recognition for its talented surplus of musicians, artists and athletes as well as hosting billion dollar riots and billionaire businessmen, rarely does the idea of "skateboarding" come to mind when someone considers a trip to the "Emerald City." Many people travel to Seattle to visit the graves of Jimmy Hendrix or Bruce Lee, they visit the Seattle Center which houses the worldly icon known as the "Space Needle" as well as "The Experience Music Project". The Pike Place Market, Westlake Center and the waterfront are other attractions that bring in billions of dollars from the tourist industry. There's a plethora of art galleries from the worst to the best and there's at least 4 coffee shops on every corner of every block.

What is the point to this intro?

Two Hawks Young with a switch 180 heelflip.

Absolutely nothing. The only reason to visit Seattle is to skate and have a blast. In the last year, there has not been a month where there wasn't some sort of skate-rock event, contest, demo or random skate session where tons of people got together to rip something to pieces. Even if it's raining, there are groups of guys and girls skateboarding something, somewhere whether it be a 2-foot quarter-pipe under a bridge, a garage in Kirkland with buttery smooth ground with home made boxes, KBS in Port Orchard, or Rain City Skate Park, sessioning is going down!

When it isn't raining in Seattle, you have a skater's paradise at your wheels. There are at least 5 parks within a few minutes from downtown via I-5 South including Sea-Tac, Renton, Burien, Federal Way and Auburn, Auburn being the farthest (30 minutes). The same goes if you travel north on I-5 (ask any skater). Unlike most cities, Seattle has 2 parks located downtown. Rain City Skate Park is a 12,000 square foot indoor private park with obstacles ranging from beginner-street, advanced-street, beginner mini-ramp and a full sized vertical half pipe standing at eleven feet tall. For more info visit www.raincityskatepark.com. Sea-Sk8 is only a couple of miles north of Rain City Skate Park and is quite the opposite of Rain City Skate Park.

Shaun Jenks puts on a show for the building residents - Frontside Boardslide.

Sea-Sk8 is owned and managed by the Seattle Center (they have honestly done the best they knew how) and the City of Seattle. It is free, outdoor and pads are recommended but not required. The park is concrete with a big bowl and is open from 9:00 am to dusk. The best part about Sea Sk8 is that the coliseum is across the street and you get to skate to live music during the concerts, you can even see the band, unfortunately they look like ants but the sound is good. Ballard Skate Park is another public outdoor park in Seattle built by skaters for skaters.

The street course consists of many of the obstacles from last year's "Sound and the Fury" amateur competition. Soon Grindline will install a highly anticipated concrete bowl between the mini-ramp and the street course. Grindline is responsible for the euphoric mecca of Dreamland Design parks throughout all of Oregon. The Ballard Bowl will be the third public park poured by the Grindline crew in Washington this year, the others being Bainbridge and Sumner. People are traveling from San Diego on up just to ride the new Bainbridge skate-park. To get a Dreamland Park in your city, visit www.grindline.com.

Josh Jones knows how to get his build on and displays his construction technique during this backside tailslide.

So the Puget Sound Region has a park every fifteen minutes, some being bad, and some being good. With the splurge of skate-parks in Washington, many skaters have given up on dealing with security, cops and irate property owners and found comfort in riding parks and backyard ramps, which is great for them because they're having fun and that's all that matters. What does this mean for a street-skater whose motive is to seek new terrain that wasn't designed for a skateboard? Much like a pool-skater seeks out new pools, street skaters will see a handrail in front of a retirement home, a loading dock gap behind a fire station, a double-set ledge in front of a college, and they can't sleep until they conquer these obstacles.

We always get the boot and usually they send us to a skate-park. I find it ironic that we get kicked out of a spot with good benches, rails and stairs and sent back to the skate park that has everything but good benches, rails and stairs. This is why we continue to hit the streets and if you use your imagination, everything is skateable in Seattle. Make sure to check out the "Urban Rubble" video, which is filmed primarily in Washington State and focuses on otherwise useless urban architecture being manipulated into fascinating, skate-able obstacles. It's out now in stores so grab a copy.

For more info on "Urban Rubble" contact Marshall Reid - soundandthefury@hotmail.com

Related Photos:
Seattle Spot Check