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urban planning history
urban planning history
skateboarding history
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Request to Change Laws to Make Skateboarding Legal Dear Town Board,
I am writing this letter to let you know how important it is for you to help change the laws in regards to skateboarding. Please take a few minutes to read my letter, as I hope to help you to understand why I skate and why skateboarding should not be considered a crime.
You see I am a skateboarder. I love to skate. Skateboarding is a way of life for me, which you might not understand. Skateboarding has been around since the early 1920's. Our great-great grandfathers and great-grandmothers put roller-skate wheels on apple-crates; eventually they evolved into the first skateboards that were sold in hardware stores around the U.S. as early as 1950. Huge growth in the 1960s came about when the clay wheel replaced the steel wheels.
Since then, United States cities have done a wonderful job in creating recreation areas in their public parks for almost every sport known to man. Basketball courts, football and soccer fields, baseball diamonds, tennis and racquetball courts, the list could go on and on. But for one reason or another skateboarding has been neglected.
Skateboarding is an activity that requires physical strength, stamina, and an aggressive attitude toward success, all of which happen to be traits of what we label as a "sport". Skateboarding is a truly creative sport that emphasizes the incorporation of city terrain into smooth, fast movements. It's a sport that accepts anyone willing to try it. It doesn't discriminate against race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Nancy and Frank Peter Rupert Hawk in Carlsbad, California on May 12, 1968. As a young child, he was teased in school because he had scabs and bruises all over him from skateboarding. (Mortimer page#) However, he never let it get to him. He was very strong and determined to be the best. His parents did not have enough money to let him go to the skateparks everyday, so his dad made him a ramp in the driveway. (Mortier page#) They were always encouraging him to follow his dreams. He was hard on himself and expected himself to do so many things because of his dedication to the sport. His frustration became such an issue his parents had him psychologically evaluated at school. The results came back that Hawk was “gifted”, for he had an I.Q. of 144. (tonyhawk.com) His teachers suggested that he be placed in advanced classes. He moved up to the fourth grade but realized it was too much for him. Therefore, he went back to the third grade.(Mortimer page#) He was very intelligent, but he focused more on skateboarding than he did in school.
During the 1950’s when skateboarding first got it’s legs it was a very popular activity to take part in during vacations to ocean side tourist attractions, or as an activity after surfing. Yet, by 1965, skateboarding had diminished in popularity completely, therefore almost every skateboard manufacturer went out of business. . During this time the only people who even wanted to skateboard were surfers who needed something to ride to practice their surfing while the waves were flat. Due to the fact that there were no skateboards being made or sold, those who wanted to skate had to take it upon them-selves to manufacture their own boards. Using any kind of scrap they could find to build a usable board out of, such as metal scrap pieces or old planks. These determined surfers had to unscrew the trucks and wheels off of roller skates and attach them to the bottom of their boards. And because these kids were from very poor families for the most part, and next to non had jobs of their own, they had to resort to taking the trucks and wheels off the roller skates secretly in the stores. Although.., the clay wheels th...
Surfing is not a sport, and no true surfer would ever claim otherwise. Yes, it requires all the essential elements of a sport; strength, discipline, balance and most of all practice but unlike a sport, surfing isn’t a competition. True, even most surfers refer to it as an “extreme sport”, but the truth is, we do so because it’s impossible to create a word that completely describes surfing. It is an experience in its own class, a spiritual conquest quest, searching for the perfect wave.
There has never been any attempt, whatsoever to get a skate park here in Nacogdoches. This is the reason why there are so many skaters out at night skateboarding on the public sidewalks. This is also presents a problem for the police because there are many places that are great for skating, but are restricted by city ordinances. However, there is always some zealous skater who will brave it and end up getting hurt, or worst end up in jail. Most police put skater under a stereotype, where they assume all skaters are punks. Needless to say this is wrong, there are many skaters who may not have done anything wrong, but because there a skater the police force their authoritarian will upon them. To people who skate it’s just as much a sport to them as football, basketball or basket ball is to others. ...
Roller skating is said to have been born during the summer months when ice was not available. The first documented inventor of roller skates was John Joseph Merlin who was born September 17, 1735, in the city of Huys, Belgium. Merlin was well known for his abilities for making musical instruments and other interesting mechanical gadgets. Through various incarnations, roller skates strove to replicate the streamlined speed and maneuverability of ice skates, but without ball bearings or shock-absorbent wheels it would take 200 years before that dream was achieved. Even as late as 1960, the Chicago Skate Company attempted to market an inline skate that looked much like today's skate, but it did not offer sufficient comfort, stability or a reliable brake (Zaidman 1). Although the Chicago Skate Company’s attempt of the inline skate was not successful, it did play a pivotal role in the molding of what is now known as inline skating.
Although snowboarding hasn’t been in the Olympics for very long, it is still a very important sport. When the first snowboard was made in 1917, nobody thought that it would become such a popular sport. In fact up until the early 1990s most ski resorts banned boarders for fear of injuries. The Olympics had snowboard as a demonstration sport in the 1994 games, before it became a full sport in 1998. With multiple events and thousands of fans, all eyes will be on the boarders this Olympic games.
“Hopefully, kids realize you can do anything you want. Skateboarding can be that gateway.” - Ryan Sheckler. Sheckler meant that skateboarding is more than a sport, skateboarding is way of life and it can take people wherever they want to go. The culture of skateboarding has been taking over the world because anyone can do it no matter what their background, ethnicity, or body shape. This way of life is art form that is expressed through style and maneuvers on a piece of wood with wheels. Skateboarding has become one of the most popular extreme sports in the past few decades. In 2009 there was an estimated 9,281,500 skateboarders in the United States and that number continues to grow each year (“Who Are Skateboarders”). Why then are skateboarders
Revered by some, and shamed by others — skateboarding is growing tremendously fast. In fact, the amount of skateboarders in the country has increased by over 128 percent over the past decade, now forming a population of 11 million skateboarders (Aperio). While skateboarders recognize the sport as a craft, many others see it as notorious, even criminal. This is due to the very nature of the sport. Skateboarders have built a dependency on street infrastructure, like stairs and ledges, in order to perform their tricks. Many cities have found a quick but rather futile solution to the complaints made by business owners and pedestrians; make skating illegal! The dramatic growth in skateboarders around the country has proved this method to be insufficient
When did snowboarding start? Who invented it? Snowboarding started in 1965 and Sherman Poppens created the first snowboard. Tom Sims invented the snowboard in his 7th grade workshop. Tom Sims has credit for the development, but so does Sherman Poppens. Sherman Poppens attached 2 skis together in 1965. His wife christened it “the Snurfer” and the kids loved it. Poppens may have been inspired by a sled-like device that first appeared in the 1920s. The first snowboard brand was invented by a guy named Jake Burton. Jake Burton (the Burton creator) was inspired by the snurfer.
As skateboarding evolved, it was once something kids do in their free time, later became a prospering sport. This started many new changes to our local cities. “No skateboarding” signs are being posted places that skateboarders would go to practice. Architects are finding new ways to redesign structures like benches and handrails in the city, in order to lower the abundance of skateboarder in an area. All these changes have resulted in a good amount of money spent redoing everything to prevent skateboarding, but nothing is being done to give skateboarders a safe place to skate. For young teens whose only transportation is a skateboard, they can only travel so far, and skateparks are not close enough. To eliminate the amount of skateboarders in heavily populated areas, I propose that cities invest more money into building skateparks so skateboarders have a safe place to practice the sport.
For many individuals, skateboarding is an exciting and fun activity to participate in. Both children and adults have incorporated the sport into their lives recreationally or as a serious lifetime occupation. There are many reasons to why skateboarding can be a positive and rewarding experience for just about anyone. However, there are many individuals that find the sport to be dangerous and argue for its ban with flimsy opinions. The city should not pass a ban against skateboarders on all public property as there is no concrete argument on why their activities are harmful to such an extent; banning the sport would not only result in outrage from the abridgement of civil liberties and be an injustice to the diversity of our country, but force
Interestingly enough, snowboarding was invented by Sherman Poppen in North Muskegon, Michigan, back in 1965. Nowadays, snowboarding is considered one of the most popular winter sports among teenagers. On the other hand, there are many people that don’t have the slightest idea how to ride a snowboard straight down a hill. There are four steps to learn the basic skills of snowboarding.
Paintball started in 1981 and has grown a lot since then. Paintball was created by Charles Gaine, Hayes Noel, and Robert Gurnsey in 1981. Paintball guns were not originally used or made for paintball they were originally created for, they were made and used to mark stray cattle and to mark trees to be cut down. The group of friends played privately and slowly made a corporation called the National Survival Games Inc. This was the first paintball company to exist that was actually meant for paintball. Paintball became very popular fast in the time it came out. In 1989 there was about 75,000 players playing in fields across america. In the early 1990’s paintball executives tried and succeeded to add paintball guns to stores like sears saying that the game was for fun not for military training. This meant that stores across the country would start selling paintball equipment which grew the sport even more (Woodward). Paintball has grown a lot since it’s start, the equipment has gotten more safe and more efficient.
Throughout human-history, sports continue to remain universal across all cultures, from 776 B.C. where the Olympics were held in Greece, to modern-day where March Madness runs rampant on college campuses in the United States. However, even after millennia, there is not a uniform definition for a sport in either the scientific or colloquial sense. Instead, there are frequent debates on what is considered a sport in bars and sociological papers. Specific to the United States, there are traditional sports that are never questioned, like basketball, football, baseball, and hockey. Other more popular activities like skateboarding are now considered a sport, but through the 1970s-1990s, it was ridiculed by those who held a traditional theory on what
Skates used to be more like skis. Players glided on the ice rather than actually skated. Artifacts also show the use of animal bones as skate blades as well. Currently, steal blades are used. There is a small arc groove on the blade that provides the friction needed to counteract the slipperiness of the ice (Haché 37). The boot of the skate is hard enough to protect the foot from puck impact but also flexible enough “to allow the calf muscle to push forward and to ease knee bending when the player crouches” (Haché 35).