[ WHAT IT WAS ]
[ THE MAP ]
[ TROY ]
[ BEST SESH EVER ]
[ WHAT I LEARNED THERE ]
[ THE LAST NIGHT ]
[ WHERE WE SKATE NOW ]
[ IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW ]
>> WHAT IT WAS
--------------------------------
ok so if you never went there, the warehouse was an indoor skatepark in an old furniture warehouse out by
the train tracks. it was the only indoor park for like 60 miles. it had a bowl, a mini ramp, a street
course and a couch, and it was open after school till 10 and all day saturday and sunday, and it was 5
bucks a session or 40 for a month pass, and it was the best place in the entire world.
i started going when i was 11. my mom dropped me off the first time and i stood by the pop machine for
like an hour because everybody was older and better than me. now im 16 and i was one of the old guys. thats
how long i went there.
it closed in october of last year. troy (the guy who ran it, see below) couldnt pay the insurance anymore.
insurance for a skatepark is apparently insane because people are always getting hurt, which, yeah. so it
closed, and now its a self storage place. they painted the outside beige. BEIGE. people keep their old
couches in there now. which is kind of funny if you think about it, but im not laughing.
>> THE MAP
--------------------------------
this is from memory but i could walk it with my eyes closed so its right.
FRONT DOOR - the front counter where troy sat with the cash box and the stereo. behind the
counter: grip tape, wheels, bearings, bushings, a few decks, and the lost and found box which was 90% single
shoes.
THE COUCH - straight in, on the left, by the pop machine. brown, ripped, held together with grip
tape and duct tape. you sat on the couch when you were waiting, when you were bleeding, or when you were
watching somebody try something gnarly. you NEVER sat on the couch with your board on it.
THE STREET COURSE - the whole middle of the floor. a funbox with a ledge on one side and a
little hip on the other. the flat bar (about knee high, perfect for boardslides and 50-50s). two quarterpipes
on each end. a kicker launch ramp that troy took out in 1997 after phillips wrist. some cones.
THE MINI - in the back right corner. 4 feet tall, 16 feet wide, with metal coping. the paint
on the flat bottom was worn down to the wood in two stripes from everybody pumping the same line for five
years.
THE BOWL - the back left corner. the whole reason anybody drove 60 miles. it was wood, kind of
a kidney shape, 6 feet in the shallow end and 8 in the deep end with a little bit of vert. it had a dead spot
in the deep end that made a hollow noise when you rolled over it. we called it the drum.
THE BATHROOM - we will not discuss the bathroom.
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>> TROY
--------------------------------
troy ran the warehouse. he was like 30-something and skated in the 80s, back when everybody had pads up to
their eyeballs and boards as wide as a cafeteria tray. he could still drop in the deep end of the bowl and
do a frontside grind around the whole thing, slow and perfect, like it was 1987.
troy rules:
- helmet in the bowl. no exceptions. even if youre 18. even if youre the coolest guy ever.
- no skating on the couch.
- no bad words when the little kids are in on saturday morning.
- if you break it, tell him. (if you break YOURSELF, also tell him.)
- if you cant pay this week, sweep the street course on sunday night and youre square.
i swept a lot. so did everybody. troy never once turned a kid away for not having 5 bucks and i dont think
the insurance people cared about that, which is the whole problem.
he works at a bike shop now. he still says hi when we see him. he says hes going to try and open another
one someday. i hope so.
>> BEST SESH EVER
--------------------------------
saturday in february 1998, during that ice storm when nobody could skate outside for like two weeks. troy
opened at noon and stayed open till midnight and there must have been 40 people in there. somebody brought
a boombox and played the same three tapes over and over. troy ordered pizza and made everybody chip in a
dollar.
that night:
- nicholas did a backside air out of the deep end higher than anybody had ever gone in the bowl. everybody
was screaming. troy got up on the counter.
- alana, who was 14 then and could already skate the mini better than half the guys, landed her first
blunt to fakie and then did it like nine more times in a row just to make the point.
- ricardo boardslid the entire flat bar fakie, which nobody even knew was possible.
- i landed my first frontside 5-0 on the funbox ledge. i didnt even do it clean but it counts.
- henry fell asleep on the couch at 11 and we stacked all the pizza boxes on him and he didnt wake up.
best day of my life. i dont even care if that sounds stupid.
>> WHAT I LEARNED THERE
--------------------------------
every trick i can do, i learned at the warehouse, in order:
| AGE |
TRICK |
| 11 |
dropping in on the mini (took me a month. troy held my hand the first time. dont tell anybody) |
| 11 |
ollie, rock to fakie |
| 12 |
50-50 on the flat bar, axle stall on the mini, pop shove-it |
| 13 |
kickflip (6 months of shins), boardslide, frontside grind in the shallow end |
| 14 |
heelflip, nosegrind on the funbox, carving the whole bowl without stopping |
| 15 |
frontside 5-0, smith grind on the mini, dropping in on the deep end (finally) |
| 16 |
nothing new in the bowl since it closed, because there is no bowl. ok? ok. |
>> THE LAST NIGHT
--------------------------------
the last night was halloween, saturday october 31, 1998. troy let everybody in free. half of us wore costumes.
adam came as a mummy out of toilet paper and it was all gone by 8 oclock. armando came as tony hawk, which
just meant he wore a helmet and a bowling shirt and kept saying he was going to do a 900 (he did not do a 900.
nobody had done a 900 yet, not even tony hawk. that came later. more on that below).
everybody signed the wall behind the mini with markers. troy took pictures, which he says are still at the
drugstore because he keeps forgetting to pick them up. we skated till 2 in the morning. at the very end troy
turned off the music and everybody took one last run in the bowl, one at a time, oldest to youngest, and
everybody banged their boards on the coping for every single person. alana was the last one because she was
the youngest of the regulars. she did a frontside grind all the way around and the noise was so loud my ears
rang in the car.
then troy turned out the lights and we all stood in the parking lot for a while not saying anything. then we
went home.
they tore out the ramps the week after. somebody told me the wood went to a dump. i hope somebody grabbed the
drum.
>> WHERE WE SKATE NOW
--------------------------------
- the bank parking lot on sundays. nice smooth blacktop, two curbs, one parking block we waxed so
much it looks like glass. good until the security guy shows up, which is usually 20 minutes.
- behind the grocery store. there's a loading dock with a perfect ledge. we're not supposed to be
there either.
- the church. this is the weird one. there's a church on the other side of town with a huge parking
lot, and the youth pastor, john, skated when he was a kid. he talked his church into letting us skate the lot
tuesday and friday nights as long as we wear helmets, clean up, and stay for pizza and a talk afterward. the
talk is like 10 minutes and honestly its not bad. we built a funbox and a little quarterpipe in my garage and
we bring them over in larrys truck. it is not the warehouse. but its somewhere, and nobody kicks us out.
- my driveway. my mom says if i scratch the car with my board one more time the board goes in the trash.
so far i have scratched the car 4 more times.
if you live somewhere that's trying to get a real skatepark, GO TO THE MEETINGS. my friends parents act like
we're criminals but we just want somewhere to go. check out
Kickflip Kyle's Skate Page, hes got a whole petition going for a park in his
town. good luck getting yours, kyle. seriously. once you get it, dont ever let it close.
>> IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW
--------------------------------
* THE DRUM
* "who left the gate open on the bowl" (there was no gate)
* henry and the pizza boxes
* phillips wrist (hes fine now. it bends a little weird)
* ricardos one sock
* the time somebody put a dead mouse in the lost and found box
* the welcome to hell tape playing on the counter tv for 3 straight weeks till it got eaten
* "troy is the couch open"
* larry and the pop machine (you owe it like 11 dollars, larry)
* ALANA > you
>> STUFF WE WATCHED ON THE COUNTER TV
--------------------------------
troy had a tv and a vcr on the counter and played videos all day. these were the ones in heavy rotation:
- welcome to hell (toy machine). see above. we had it memorized. elissa steamers part made alana want to skate.
- mouse (girl). koston and guy mariano. the most perfect street skating ever.
- questionable (plan b). from 1992, which is ancient. pat duffys part is still insane. troy said the handrails in it gave him nightmares.
- the search for animal chin (powell peralta). troys tape from the 80s. we made fun of the clothes and then
couldnt stop watching.
- 411. whatever the newest issue was.
and if you were living under a rock this summer, tony hawk landed the first 900 ever at the x games in san
francisco in june. we watched it at ricardos house. we were screaming. ricardos dad came in thinking
somebody got hurt. troy if youre reading this, you were right, you said hed get it.
--------------------------------
skaters who have stopped by:
  
if you skated the warehouse, email me: [email protected]
especially if you have pictures. or the drum.
last updated 9/19/99
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