“Skateboarding can be a form of art, a sport, a hobby, a job or a method of transportation.[1] Skateboarding has been shaped and influenced by many skateboarders throughout the years. A 2002 report by American Sports Data found that there were 12.5 million skateboarders in the world. Eighty-five percent of skateboarders polled who had used a board in the last year were under the age of 18, and 74 percent were male.[2] Skateboarding is a relatively modern sport —it originated as “sidewalk surfing” in the United States, particularly California, in the 1950s—. A key skateboarding trick, the ollie, was only developed in the late 1970s.[3]”
{read more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skateboarding}
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“Before The Beginning
Predating the first skateboard, the New York Times reported on May 21, 1893 in an article entitled: “DANGEROUS SPORT IN BROOKLYN: Coasting on Lincoln Place May Sometime Lead to Loss of Life”.Lincoln Place, {Park Slope} Brooklyn, smoothly paved with asphalt from the Prospect Park (Brooklyn) Circle to Fifth Avenue and has a slope about 15 degrees. During the past few weeks small boys from all parts of the neighborhood have gathered on Lincoln Place with little four wheeled carts, on which they have coasted down the middle of the Street…Brooklyn Eagle article on July 18, 1897, “BETTER BROOKLYN STREETS” further explains how street engineering in Brooklyn enabled the above mentioned “cart coasting.”
The great amount of asphalt and vitrified brick pavement that is replacing the noisy and miserably laid cobblestones, and even granite block… {would create} roads the smoothest in the country and as noiseless as can be provided for by the very latest scientific pavement…”
{read more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skateboarding} |
