Skating in 70s Houston,TX

Footage by Drew

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• skating
• skateboards
• skateboarding
• 1970s
• Houston
• TX
• Texas

[jffloyddd]

Someone had asked if "Anyone remembered Skateboard City?" in a previous post and although that post is no longer here, i thought i would reply because that was such an awesome time period and park for Houston skaters!

[jffloyddd]

Hell Yea!! Finally someone remembers Skateboard City in Spring Branch!! I remember skating there on the night Led Zep played at the Summit and sulking that I was too young to be there!! This was right before I pushed off to attack that little snake run turn at back of park. I was riding one of those Maharaja decks that had the different hard wood strips from nose to tail, one inch grip tape strips and Bennett trucks w/Road Rider wheels. Those were the days!! Everyone was surf influenced.

[jffloyddd]

Later on guy who I won't name had two different awesome for the time half pipes built in about 2 years over off Sue Barnett in Garden Oaks. Remember the bowl that seemed so big to me at age 14 when you first came through the gate? It had lots of vert and some older surfer types extended it to dangerous heights with some plywood extension vert, I like stayed away when they were around that beast hahaha :P

[zz502camaro]

@visiblesoul , My bad. Was looking at another vid and mixed it up. I used to freak people out at the pipeline by heading straight down and only crossing once before the end....and yes, barefoot. And yes, at the meat grinder I tried that and ate my chit.....just too fast and steep.

[visiblesoul]

And by the way, not only did people skate barefoot in the 70s (it was a surf thing) but the drinking age was 18, there were no open container laws, no seatbelts and parents were happy when we stayed outside all day.

[visiblesoul]

Meatgrinder looks easier than it is. The ditch bottom slants steeply and the walls aren't very high. It's more about controlling speed than generating speed. The now defunct Pipeline ditch was the best because the walls were higher and it didn't slant so steeply which made it easier to control speed.

[visiblesoul]

@zz502camaro - This isn't pipe. It's Meatgrinder.

[visiblesoul]

@billybassman21 - In the mid-late 70s I used to ollie a 3' ash plank with roadrider 6s up onto some 2' high cement benches and board slide across them. I didn't have a name for ollying back then. But I'm sure people where doing it long before me.

[jffloyddd]

maybe not as many skaters on the whole, but the good ones here could skate circles around the more middle class posers that made up a significant portion of the skaters at the Pipeline ~ NO TWO WAYS ABOUT IT. (Skateboarder since 1970 and still tearing it up at every opportunity).

[jffloyddd]

@zz502camaro: You dingle berry, this is the Meatgrinder near Acres Homes in Northwest Houston. I used to ride here and the Pipeline and I can tell you that even though the walls were not as high as the Pipeline, this is where the raddest skaters laid it down,