Get stoked with this Turf Skatepark video from 1989
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Back in the summer of 2010, a group of local skateboarders embarked on a wonderfully DIY archeological dig worthy of a nollie-popping Indiana Jones: the unearthing of Turf Skatepark. The Turf had been a skate-rat hotspot throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, and its concrete bowls were among the first (and finest) in the Midwest. Those bowls were eventually filled with gravel and paved with concrete when the building was sold to a lawn-and-garden company in 1994, but when the building was demolished to make way for a freeway expansion near U.S. 94 and Loomis Road, the ghostly imprints of Turf’s bowls remained. Armed with nothing more than shovels and plenty of nostalgia, a small army of former Turf regulars began digging out the site with one goal in mind: to skate the mighty Turf once again.
That dream was sadly short-lived: After only a few sessions in the partially restored park, the skaters were rousted out by police, and the bowls were once again covered in gravel and concrete. A “Save The Turf” movement quickly sprang up (gaining the support of Tony Hawk, among many others), but as of today, the campaign seems to have stalled. The Turf, it seems, will forever remain a radical relic of the past.
Happily, there’s another way to relive your grip-tape- and McSqueeb-haircut-obsessed youth: by watching a recently posted YouTube video that takes viewers on a tour of The Turf, circa 1989. It’s an impressive and glorious time capsule, filled with incredible clothes, incredible hair, and some sweet ’80s skating. Check out the two-part time-warp below:
