Long before we covered LOVE Park's own history here, a young Chris Cole was already skating it - a backside flip down the fountain stairs, then a switch frontside flip and a backside 360 ollie down the same set, all filmed for his early Transworld and Fallen video parts.

Born in Langhorne, PA in 1982, Cole built his name on some of the gnarliest gap and rail tricks of the 2000s: a backside 360 kickflip down the Carlsbad gap, and a 360 flip / switch frontside flip down San Francisco's infamous Wallenberg High School stairs. That technical, high-consequence style earned him Thrasher's "Skater of the Year" title twice - 2005 and 2009 - a distinction only three other skaters in history have matched (Danny Way, who we've also covered here, among them). He stacked multiple X Games gold medals along the way too (2006, 2007 x2, 2013 Street League) plus a Street League Skateboarding world title.

Sources: Wikipedia (Chris Cole), originboardshop.com skater bio.

More real skate history and highlights drop here regularly - come hang out at r/SkateTribune if you're into this stuff.

In 1980, a 14-year-old Rodney Mullen showed up to the Oasis Pro contest and beat the reigning freestyle world champion, Steve Rocco. At the same event he noticed a 12-year-old kid nobody had heard of yet - a kid who introduced himself as Tony Hawk, years before Hawk ever got sponsored.

That was basically Mullen's whole career in miniature: doing things nobody thought were possible, years ahead of everyone else. He turned pro for Bones Brigade (Powell Peralta) not long after, then went on to win 34 of 35 freestyle contests over the next decade - still the most dominant competitive run skateboarding has ever seen.

Somewhere in there he also invented the flatground ollie: he took a vert trick from Alan Gelfand and figured out how to pop the board off flat ground the same way. That one adaptation is the reason kickflips, heelflips, and pretty much every flip trick in street skating exist at all.

He got good enough at running things, too - he left the University of Florida during his senior year, one semester from a chemical engineering degree, to go run a skateboard company, World Industries, with a co-founder named Steve Rocco. Yes, the same Steve Rocco he beat as a 14-year-old.

He kept evolving after that - joined Plan B in 1991 and fully crossed over from freestyle into street, adapting years of freestyle tricks into the vocabulary that defines modern street skating.

Sources: Wikipedia (Rodney Mullen), Mullen's own 2012 interview comments on the origin of the ollie.

🛹 PALACE SKATEBOARDS REVEALS FALL 2026 LOOKBOOK
Palace Skateboards has unveiled its Fall 2026 lookbook, featuring a mix of technical outerwear, workwear, nostalgic graphics and skate-inspired streetwear.
Highlights include an Avirex leather jacket, GORE-TEX pieces and a Betty Boop collaboration. The collection combines Palace’s traditional skateboarding identity with fashion-forward pieces and pop-culture references.
The collection began its global rollout on August 7, 2026.
WHY IT’S INTERESTING:
Palace is one of the skate brands that has successfully crossed over from skateboarding into mainstream fashion without losing its connection to skate culture. The Fall 2026 collection is another example of that blend between skateboarding, streetwear and high fashion.
SOURCE:
Hypebeast
“Palace Skateboards Reveals Fall 2026 Lookbook”
Published July 31, 2026
https://hypebeast.com/2026/7/palace-skateboards-fall-2026-lookbook-preview

Halloween, 1990: a handful of skateboarders in Portland pour a few bags of cement against a wall under the east end of the Burnside Bridge, with zero permission from the city. That small illegal bank obstacle became Burnside Skatepark - the first DIY skatepark in skateboarding history.

The spot they picked had been overrun with drug use and other illegal activity for years. Skaters chose it because it was covered and dry, so they could skate through Portland's rainy season. The first obstacle was a tiny 3x3 foot bank. Then a bigger one. Then the builders struck a deal with a nearby construction crew pouring concrete for the I-84 on-ramp and started hauling off the leftovers - and the whole project exploded from there into the sprawling maze of bowls, hips, and vert walls that's there today.

The city never funded a cent of it and technically could have bulldozed the whole thing for years. Instead, Burnside eventually got accepted as a legitimate public skatepark, and its DIY blueprint directly spawned two of the biggest skatepark-building companies in the country (Grindline and Dreamland), which have since built hundreds of parks across the US. A 2009 Wall Street Journal piece credited Burnside as a big reason Portland got called "the skateboarding capital of the world."

It's still fully donation-funded and skater-run over three decades later - built entirely by people who weren't waiting for anyone's permission.

Sources: Wikipedia (Burnside Skatepark), Willamette Week "Under the Bridge: 25 Years of Fighting for Burnside Skatepark," ESPN "Burnside Skatepark turns 20 on Halloween," Wall Street Journal "Skateboarding Capital of the World."

https://www.instagram.com/p/C3OG2ONxGa0/?igsi=MW8yczhiM2ZhajRrbQ==

LOVE Park (JFK Plaza) in Philadelphia became one of skateboarding's most legendary spots almost by accident. Its granite ledges, gaps, and stair sets weren't built for skating, but through the 90s and into the 2000s it turned into a proving ground for East Coast street skating and showed up constantly in skate videos and photography of the era. It was famous enough to get its own level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

Skating there was technically illegal for most of that time. The city cracked down hard starting in the early 90s under Mayor Ed Rendell, with $300 fines becoming routine, but the bans never really killed the scene. In February 2016, Mayor Jim Kenney actually lifted the skating ban for five days as a send-off before the city demolished and rebuilt the plaza, removing the Fountain Gap and the rest of what made it skateable.

Sources: Philadelphia Magazine, NPR, and HERO Magazine's coverage of the park's history and 2016 renovation.

This sub has crossed 1,000+ weekly visitors and it's still climbing - real Session/Skater XL/THPS edits, real street and park footage, no fluff.

Taking that same energy over to Instagram now: instagram.com/skatetribune

Follow if you want first look at reposts, the monthly edit contest, and the occasional behind-the-scenes from the music side of this whole thing (Athalias Studios). Tag us in a clip and there's a real shot we repost it.

July 9, 2005: Danny Way becomes the first person to clear the Great Wall of China on a skateboard - no motor, no wires, just a purpose-built "MegaRamp" set up over the Ju Yong Guan Gate section of the wall.

He'd busted his foot in a botched practice run the day before. Showed up anyway. Bombed the ramp at close to 50 mph and sent the roughly 60-foot gap five times in front of a crowd of several thousand people, including Chinese government ministers who'd come out for it. First attempt, he ate it on the landing. Then he stuck it four times straight, throwing 360s on the last three just because he could.

It fits his whole career, honestly - the guy has never really done things the normal-sized way. Two-time Thrasher Skater of the Year, first skateboarder to ever drop into a ramp from a helicopter (1997), set and re-broke his own world records for longest skateboard jump and biggest air multiple times through the early 2000s, and co-founded Plan B Skateboards with Colin McKay. All of that on a body that had already survived a broken neck in '94 and over a dozen surgeries by the time he rolled up to that wall.

Twenty years later it's still one of the wildest things anyone has landed on a skateboard.

Sources: Wikipedia (Danny Way), Thrasher Magazine - "Danny Way vs The Great Wall 10 Years Later", ESPN X Games photo archive.

This sub is pushing 1,300+ weekly visitors deep in underground skate/edit culture - Session, Skater XL, THPS clips, real street and park footage, all of it. We're building the same energy on Instagram now: instagram.com/skatetribune - follow for reposts, hype, and the monthly contest drops before they land here. Tag us in your clips and we'll share the best ones.

GUYS it was this one dude that had multiple viral clips african american he was trying to land a trick of some stairs and then slammed and the dude recording went like dude i thought you landed on a ketchup pack and then the skater said man fck i moved to LA to became a professional skater i was following for i while then one day i unfollowed and cant find him

CHECK THIS OUT, almost landed two 360 kickflips back to back in the garage while hyping up the Primitive Skateboards two-pack. So close.

Grab yours: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDWXRbyn/
Follow along: https://www.reddit.com/r/SkateTribune
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Down to the last two Primitive Skateboards mystery double packs, $80 for two boards. On this demo I pulled $145 worth of gear out of mine, the odds are stacked in your favor on these. Don't sleep on the last ones before they're gone.

Get yours here: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDgM4eJx/

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The new song "Over And Over Again" from Off-World is out now via Athalias Studios. Hyping it up with this Session gameplay clip, and now I want to see the community get involved. Make your own Session skate edit using this song and tag me.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5e9k9CTNJyqHfAYsoJRzsX?si=KoshtS1qR5yQ1siAEJP9fw&utm_source=copy-link

Follow along: https://www.reddit.com/r/SkateTribune
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