Whifecta
Born 9-5-15 / Died 10-23-15
The end of Summer and beginning of fall brought a strange turn of events in my life. I was in the middle of enjoying my summer off from working and skating quite a bit. Then one day, I caught wind the the Boeing Rec Facility was getting torn down to make way for new houses. I’d been watching the place for years as it was easy to tell from the Satellite in the sky that there were threee empty pools waiting to be ridden. Me and friends had tried several times to penetrate the walls only to be confronted by live in security or over zealous security.
OVER TIME:
The next morning, Thursday, I got on my scooter and drove up straight into a beehive of demolition and right to a group of foreman. I asked if I could skate the pools or better yet, can I have a look at them to see if they were even any good. He gave me the ok and I checked them out. the 11 footer and the 6 footer were a go, but the kiddie pool was merely a street obstacle. I returned to one of the foreman and said I wanted to ride them. He took me aside and said ‘That guy driving the tractor right there doesn’t want any one around!” He then said “The crews wont be here on the weekend though…” wink wink.. So I got a plan of attack ready for the weekend, and it was Labor Day weekend to boot!
Saturday morning arrives and I got some pool payback to give so Ozzie Medina can make it and Bart can make it. Only thing is when we get there, the demolition crew is there in full effect. We decide to say fuck it and barge right into the pools. Drooling hard and cleaning out only dead leaves took very little time. It was a hot summer in the valley so the water had long evaporated. Once we were about to roll, that’s when the worker decided to ask whats up with us. “We’re with the pool crew”, I told him. It took him a second to figure out that was BS and he said we weren’t supposed to be there blah.. blah.. blah. We said we were skating and made no movement towards the exit. He changed his mind because of our, Jedi Mind Fuck, and said we could skate until he left in a few hours. IT WAS ON!!!
HISTORICAL SHOTS: – I found these scattered in the back house mess among hundred of other pics scatered in the destruction. Photographer unknown:
The Baby Pool
The deep bowl with the diving board, lounge and flirt.
Flying in off the diving board!
What ensued the next 5 weeks was priceless! At first word leaked out slowly to the core valley pool skaters. But then it exploded! After the first week, I told my invites to spread the word and get as many heads in there as possible because it wouldn’t be there long. Every day we all went back there after 5 o’clock when the work crews left for the day and we had it to ourselves. Beers and bowls and good times.
Towards the end some really famous skaters made it out and pulled of some serious shit in there. They were bombing it during the day. No one was holding back any more. Taggers and scavengers were rolling through the complex almost daily, taking what little was left from the buildings or breaking windows. It was a little bit of Anarchy a couple blocks from my house. It was as if the little West Hills community had a rad skatepark for a few weeks.
The last day was also memorable because it was so sad to say goodbye. They had pushed in some huge fence pillars into the bowls making them really dangerous. The handful of us who showed up that fateful day called it the Armageddon Session. We swept a few paths through it, rolled around, and drank some beers as the sun faded on the last session.
To all the skaters who skated I am stoked you got some!!! To all my friends who I couldn’t get to come ride it, you really missed out on something cool!
