Skate Mall Wall - Springfield VA

In the spring of 1977, Fairfax County VA began legislation that banned skateboarding, but allowed skateboard parks to be built commercially in various zoning districts.  Public feedback on these laws continued until July of 1977, meaning the first parks in NoVa mostly missed the apex of the skatepark craze of the summer of '77.

Indeed, an article in the Northern Virginia Sun in April of 1977 said NoVa skaters could only compete "next door" in other states that had skateparks.

Skate Mall Wall in Springfield and Skateworld in Alexandria were the first two parks to open, and they competed with one another, and eventually merged ownership.

The Last few months…have seen the opening of several acres of rolling concrete waves where skaters can work on perfecting the nuances of the gorilla grip while the parks’ young owners sit bemused by even greater ambitions. There are, it seems, asphalt empires to be made.

"It’s incredible," says Richard Evans, whose skateboard park Skate Mall Wall, looks out on the vast reaches of the Springfield Mall shopping center.  "The Market’s just opening up here, the possibilities are limitless.”

Evans is 28, a lean body in faded jeans with a network of fine scars on his face and a permanently bent finger to show for his own years on a skateboard. Talking faster than a runaway skateboard can speed down a drainage ditch, Evans surveys his quarter acre of hills, mounds, and culverts that will eventually, he says, become four acres of challenges to parental peace of mind.

Darling, Lynn (November 14, 1977). “Skateboard: Status Symbol for the Young in Suburbia”. Washington Post

Skate Mall Wall can be remembered as one of the few concrete parks of the era that were built within a mall's traffic loop (along with Carolina Circle in North Carolina and Rivergate Skatepark in Tennessee)