Skateboarding in San Francisco

Historical Essay

by Exly Lundahl, 2025

Skateboarders mass on Market Street, June 11, 2020, protesting the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Photo: Chris Carlsson

San Francisco has been called a “Mecca” for skateboarding,(1) and looking around the city, whether it be the steep hills, urban architecture, or even the houses, SF provides unique ways for skaters to reinterpret “public” space. However, with the popularization of skateboarding, there has been conflict between skaters and those in power regarding how urban space should be used. This dissension manifests itself in the architecture of urban environments and in policing strategies by law enforcement and local security. While many attempts have been made over the years to stop skaters from using urban space in San Francisco, their underlying desire to utilize the landscape and challenge the built environment calls into question who the city is designed for. Furthermore, despite the persisting tensions between San Francisco’s government and skaters, recent construction of “skate plazas” have begun to offer a common ground.

A Brief Overview

Over time, San Francisco has cemented itself as a monolith in skateboarding culture through the widespread distribution of its local skateboarding media—especially magazines and videos. The most prolific skateboarding magazine and video distribution company in skateboarding, Thrasher Magazine, was started in San Francisco in 1981 (Pinto n.d.).

Skateboarding in San Francisco is most often characterized by “street skateboarding” (Howell, 2001). When street skating, skateboarders utilize common features of the urban landscape—such as ledges and handrails—to perform their tricks. In doing so, they reinterpret and adapt the landscape to make it suitable to their needs. Largely due to the city’s unique topography, its iconic street skateboarding spots have been popularized in skateboarding media.

Notable locations include the Pier 7 Ledges, Embarcadero Plaza, the Wallenberg High School four block, the Bay Blocks, and the Chinatown Banks.(2) Each of these individual skate spots have their own internal histories of tricks that skaters have performed. All of them have been policed in some capacity to prevent skateboarders from interacting with their features. Pier 7 has been “skate stopped” (skate stopping is depicted below) multiple times to prevent skaters from grinding the ledges and so have the Bay Blocks.(3) Furthermore, skateboarding was banned in Embarcadero Plaza in the 1980s (Dietz 1988; ThrasherMagazine 2023a). However, skaters have found ways to continue skating at these spots despite strategies implemented by the city to inhibit this.

This image depicts “skate stoppers.” These metal objects clasping onto the side of the ledge prevent skaters from grinding their trucks across the ledge and doing other tricks on the architecture.

Photo: Exly Lundahl at Stanford University, June 6, 2025

Another instrumental aspect of skateboarding culture in San Francisco is hill bombing, which is the act of riding down a hill, typically at full speed. In a video on hill bombing from The New York Post, one of the skaters interviewed discusses the route he takes using public transit and hills to navigate throughout the city via skateboarding and hill bombing (The New Yorker 2021). In doing this, he leaves the viewer with an image of SF as a city with boundless opportunities for skateboarding. Hill bombing is especially interesting when talking about San Francisco skate culture because it does not confine the sport entirely to those who know how to do tricks involving popping the board off the ground. In theory, anyone who can ride a skateboard can bomb a hill. This highlights the unique nature of San Francisco as a place to skate—not only does the built environment offer fun spaces to skate, but also the natural environment helps dictate the way in which skaters interact with the city.

City Attitudes Toward Skateboarding: An Historical Perspective

Negative attitudes towards skateboarding in San Francisco can be seen in the mainstream media stretching back to the 1980s. A 1988 article from the San Francisco Chronicle, “Plaza Barred to Skateboarders,” discusses the city’s plans at the time to ban skateboarding in the Embarcadero Plaza (then known as the Justin Herman Plaza). The skaters interviewed in the article are largely indifferent about the ban, implying that they are confident in their ability to skate there regardless, with one boldly asserting, “‘I'll come back’...’ This is just kids having some fun.” (Dietz 1988, para. 7). Despite attempts to regulate skateboarding through law enforcement, most skaters will simply skate at the spots they want to, with little regard for whether or not they are welcome.

Skateboarders protesting, June 11, 2020.

Photo: Chris Carlsson

In a San Francisco Chronicle article titled “Skateboarding Scene” from 1993, author S’Rae Russo laments the noise caused by skaters during the workday, and wonders if the police and skaters can agree on a one-hour break from skateboarding during lunchtime. The editor actually inserts his own opinion into the article with an editor’s note, stating, “After spending the entire morning getting badgered by clients, myself and a few hundred others only ask for a little peace and quiet while we eat our bologna sandwiches and sign up for bungee jumping and comedy shows. Even the pigeons have enough class to stay away for a few hours.” (Russo 1993, para. 5) The comparison to pigeons—much unloved urban residents—dehumanizes skateboarders and emphasizes a perceived ongoing discontent by the broader public with the noise they make. Another article by the Chronicle in 1994 displays an even more scathing perspective on skaters, which can be summed up entirely by the title itself: “The Skateboard Ramp to Hell—Rape, murder and vandalism taint sport once favored by clean-cut kids” (Ferrell 1994).

Despite the unfavorable portrayal seen above, skaters are often dismissive of city government regulations and law enforcement. Their disregard for the laws put in place to prevent them from skating can be viewed as inflammatory and one may believe there is very little reason to believe that they deserve access to the public space. Their activity can be seen as destructive. “Skate and Destroy” is a well-known phrase in the skate community (Howell 2001, p. 4) and at face value, the city’s choice to implement architecture that prevents skateboarding is an easy choice when choosing between urban decay and putting skate stoppers on ledges. While it is true that skateboarding does deteriorate the urban landscape over time and that skaters intentionally disobey city orders to engage in their activity, their actions do raise the legitimate question of: if this “public space” is not for skaters, then who is it for? Are they not members of the public?

These are valid questions, and ones addressed by Howell in his paper, “The Poetics of Security,” he states,

The message is that while skateboarders consider what they do to be an art form, they also recognize that skating on street furniture is destructive, but don't feel too troubled by that fact. The reasons that they don't feel much reverence for these spaces are 1) the spaces are typically disused anyway, and 2) the skaters understand that these spaces are scripted for use only by office workers, tourists, and conventioneers. (Howell 2001, p. 4).

When skaters rebel against city ordinances and architecture, they are typically challenging the conventions of the space, using it for their purposes and transforming it in their image. They go against the established notions regarding who is entitled to public space, and whether valid or not in their actions, their choices to take elements of public space that may be inherently defensive and reinterpret them within the context of skateboarding speaks to the ingenuity of skaters. It also places emphasis on the contradiction that is public space in San Francisco. Although their actions may or may not be intended as political, they do make a statement.

Howell also provides direct analysis on the conflict between city planners and skaters. The former’s main goal is often to keep people moving through the space while providing a “simulated” urban environment. In essence, the environment, particularly urban plazas, are designed to appear public, but push unwanted groups out using architectural elements such as, “…bright lights in corners, narrow benches, rigid circulation patterns, and so on,” (Howell 2001, p. 14). This stands in contrast to the actions of skaters who linger in the space to practice their activity. Howell discusses attempts the planners and architects made to keep skaters out of public space and how they represent surveillance of the public, which is used to make these intentional design deterrents, in addition to the ways in which skaters get around these designs.

With reference to a ledge with rounded corners (designed to be un-skateable) He states, “Skaters are quick to spot subtle deterrents like the divots in the Ferry Plaza benches, but even skaters are surprised to hear that this ledge is a deterrent. Incidentally, they eventually figured out how to skate it anyway.” (Howell 2001, p. 14). This highlights the creativity of skaters in their pursuits of getting around defensive architecture. The activity allows for such fluidity that even when a ledge was built with the intention of deterring skaters from using it, they found a way around the obstacle without realizing they had done so.

Further attempts to regulate skateboarding in San Francisco can be seen in the form of skate stoppers. A particularly interesting example of skaters continuing to use the urban landscape for their benefit can be seen in the YouTube video “This Old Ledge: Pier 7” by Ted Barrow. In the video, Barrow explains that the ledges at Pier 7 were skate stopped by the early 2000s, but eventually skaters removed the metal stoppers and wooden planks to make the ledges usable again for skating (ThrasherMagazine 2023c). A similar trend can be seen at the Bay Blocks skate spot, which consists of two ledges–a lower and higher one. When the lower ledge was knobbed (skate stopped), skaters simply began skating the larger one (ThrasherMagazine 2023b). These trends not only signify the subversive actions and attitudes of skaters but are also emblematic of the city’s inability to stop most street skateboarding. Additionally, each of these examples show how skaters take ownership of public space, shape it for their purposes, and adapt their goals within the space as a response to city actions..

Skateparks vs Skate Plazas: The Future of Skateboarding in San Francisco

To get a better understanding on the relationship between skaters and the government in San Francisco, I interviewed Ted Barrow, a skater with a PhD in art history and host of the “This Old Ledge” video series on the ThrasherMagazine YouTube channel. A common theme in the interview was the topic of skate parks as a way of isolating and keeping skaters away from the general public. After I asked him how he would characterize the relationship between skaters and city government in San Francisco, Barrow responded immediately, stating, “Well, I think historically it's been pretty bad.” (Barrow, personal communication, 2025) He went on to characterize skate parks as a manifestation of the poor relationship between the city and skaters. In particular, he references “The Dish,” one of the first skate parks in San Francisco (Rosato Jr. 2015) as an egregious example of skateparks being used for this purpose. According to Barrow, “It was a terrible skate park. It was designed more for the sort of 70’s style surfing. It was also in Bayview Hunters Point, it was a very dangerous neighborhood then, as now, and I think consciously the idea with the city was to move this activity which is undesirable outside to the total periphery. And that pattern, I mean the skateparks have improved, but that pattern has continued up until about, I don’t know, five years ago.” (Barrow, personal communication, 2025)

The use of skateparks as a way to confine skaters and ban the activity from the rest of the city highlight the issues that skateboarders have with the city of San Francisco. Based on Barrow’s point, not only did the city not take into account skater’s opinions when designing the park, they also attempted to use the skatepark to control access to public space in the city. Howell corroborates these ideas, asserting, “The purpose of this simulation is enforcement,” (Howell 2001, p. 16). In other words, skateparks are typically built to keep skaters out of public space. They are intended to isolate and push skaters out of urban plazas and other places where they may be deemed “undesirable.”

Video by Chris Carlsson, June 11, 2020.

However, skateparks are unlikely to keep skater’s out of public space. Based on the trends discussed earlier of SF skaters finding ways to get around defensive architecture, Barrow’s notion of skateparks as isolating skaters, and Howell’s belief that skateparks lead to an increase in policing of public spaces, they may simply exacerbate the issues. Skaters are likely to leave the skateparks; based on the examples above, they enjoy being a part of public space and the city atmosphere.

Nevertheless, there seems to be potential for compromise between skaters and city government, with the creation and use of skateboarding plazas. The primary difference between skateparks and skate plazas is that plazas are built into the surrounding urban environment— they are not isolated. As Barrow put it in my interview with him, “We’re really not trying to do skateparks anymore. We’re trying to just incorporate skateable spaces and objects into, just the regular built environment because a lot of skateboarders don’t like skateparks. Skateparks pen you in. It’s like the difference between running on a track and running on a trail,” (Barrow, personal communication, 2025).

Incorporating skate plazas into the city has the potential for mutual benefit for both the city and skaters. According to Conor Dougherty in the New York Times article “A San Francisco Plaza Was Down and Out. Then Skaters Moved In.” In this article he talks about how post-COVID the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco was being used by drug users and unhoused people until the city permitted skateboarding at the plaza (Dougherty 2025). While of course the contradiction here is that skaters are simply pushing out other groups the city may deem “undesirable,” the plazas do pose an interesting option for compromise between the city and skaters. This is because if skaters keep these groups out of the plaza, the general public may be more inclined to partake in these spaces, providing space for them to enjoy as well.

The reasons skate plazas may help facilitate cooperation is highlighted by Luke Cianciotto in his research, “Public Space, Common Space, and the Spaces In-Between: A Case Study of Philadelphia’s LOVE Park.” Cianciotto makes a distinction between “public space” and “common space” to address how the LOVE Park, a plaza in Philadelphia that skaters and unhoused people co-inhabited and governed, has evolved over time due to city intervention and the actions of skaters (Cianciotto 2020). While his definitions and descriptions for both of these terms are very in depth and encapsulate a range of different situations, for the purposes of this paper, two main distinctions he makes will be useful. The first being that public space, “Concerns exchange value,” while common space, “Concerns use value.” The second is that public space is, “Managed, policed, surveilled by governing authorities (i.e., the State, land owner, investment group, etc.) and their imposed laws,” while common space is, “Managed by commoners, their commoning practices, and associated rules and norms.” (Cianciotto 2020, p. 680). This is important because common space can be defined by the real life inhabitants of the space, while public spaces are meant to be more transactional and a byproduct of city or local rules and regulations. He also talks about public-common spaces, which are simply common spaces created in a public space, which is how he describes LOVE Park (Cianciotto 2020).

Viewing skate plazas in San Francisco as common space shows how skaters may effectively control the space for mutual benefit with the city. If skaters in SF skate plazas choose to govern the space in a way conducive to the city’s interests, which they may be inclined to do if they want to keep the skate plazas, creating urban plazas may be a great opportunity for the two groups to reconcile.

Regardless, the city has plans to demolish Embarcadero Plaza, a historically important place for skateboarding and skaters are campaigning for part of the reconstruction to include skate-able architecture (Black 2025). While the city may be hesitant to allow this, it is difficult to ignore the role skateboarding has played in the history of the plaza and the city as a whole. Furthermore, the benefits of skaters to the city’s interests have been highlighted by the UN Plaza, and have the potential to be applied to the reconstruction of Embarcadero Plaza as well.

Conclusion

Overall, lessons can be learned from both sides in the push and pull between the city and skaters in San Francisco. While it is necessary to ensure the well-being of the public and of skateboarders, there is a balance to be struck between skaters, law enforcement, and the city government in San Francisco. With the construction and “revitalization” of skate plazas throughout San Francisco, skaters and the city government may have the opportunity to put their differences aside as the skaters bring new life to these environments. If the city recognizes skaters as legitimate users in these public plazas, the skaters may be getting what they want– a place to skate, but the reason for them having this role may be called into question. Is San Francisco trying to create a public space and city atmosphere that is welcoming to all? Or are skaters simply being used to force unhoused populations and other “undesirable” groups out, continuing the contradiction that is public space in San Francisco. While skate plazas may prove to be an opportunity for cooperation between skaters and the SF city government, they may bring up the question, yet again, of who public space in San Francisco is really for.

Notes

1. TransWorld SKATEboarding 2024

2. ThrasherMagazine 2022; “ThrasherMagazine 2023a; ThrasherMagazine 2023b; ThrasherMagazine 2023c; ThrasherMagazine 2024

3. ThrasherMagazine 2023b; ThrasherMagazine 2023c

Bibliography

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