All the Ramp…

For about a decade I worked in the building that housed Tony Hawk’s personal vert ramp. There was wide “friends and family” access so it would be common to see Andy MacDonald, Kevin Staab, Lincoln Ueda, and BMX legend Simon Tabron all having a low-key afternoon session together. The ramp also attracted visitors and fans because it is such an iconic structure that is inseparable from the cultural icon. To most people, Tony Hawk rides a skateboard. To skateboarders, Tony Hawk is a legendary vert skater. For millions his identity is linked to the vert ramp form.

The warehouse is a concrete tilt-up deal with one end carved out for offices. Around the ramp is some factory shelving for inventory, a small “street” course, and event gear.

What is its form? It’s a flat-bottomed U-shape. The decks are 13-and-a-half feet above the bottom and the radius of arc is about 15-feet. The last 12 or 14 inches at the top of the ramp are straight up and down. That’s why it qualifies as a vertical ramp.

For the most part things around the ramp just carried on like normal.

While I enjoyed skating the ramp, it didn’t call to me the way some other kinds of skateboarding terrain did. Vert ramps had always been kind of exclusive. Vert skating was macho and the slams could be enormous. The terrain was exotic; pools and ramps. Geographic privilege help build a cultural touchstone… and excellent vert ramps were akin to particular surf breaks. You were in the club or you were not.

Any time something with wheels is left on the ramp it triggers the imagination.

Sometimes the ramp would generate a big session. People would mill around the edges, phones out, capturing the runs. From my desk I could hear the occasional bails, the boards flying.

The ramp is an elegant shape and color. The warehouse is warm.

For the most part the ramp was quiet. Often it was just Tony staying loose. He was often working on new tricks and building new terrain. It was an inventive place in this way. There wasn’t much space between projects.

The ramp was often reconfigured to meet some design goal. This “corkscrew” structure was difficult to engineer and took lots of trial and error with the crash bags before the real effort.

The building housed all of Tony Hawk’s principal businesses; a video production company, a nonprofit organization dedicated to skatepark creation, and Tony’s licensing and business management team. I worked as the nonprofits Programs Director and helped communities get their skatepark efforts organized and funded.

I think the ramp has a lot of character and so there are lots of fun visual conversations possible.

As my time with the organization went on, I began to feel awkward about the social barriers that we maintain in society based on wealth. Every few days it seemed like we were meeting a new tycoon that might be interested in supporting our nonprofit when, in reality, the new tycoon was just interested in meeting Tony. There was a foundational understanding that we only existed due to the namesake and few people entered the orbit with a superseding interest in the nonprofit’s mission. Famous people like to meet other famous people. I saw Mark Wahlberg but I didn’t go to meet him. Lots of things like that.

This space hosted a small sound stage for video production before it became Tony’s office. The window overlooks the warehouse where the vert ramp is located. You can see the decks and railings through the window.

In time the operations shrunk and Tony began winding down his time skating in demos. It felt like some energy was leaving the building. Parts of his team vacated a portion of the building and it was rented to a paddle-board distributor. I started to feel like I had done as much as I wanted to do to advance skateparks. And I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish: A database hosting thousands of skateparks, streamlined grant-management tools for evaluating and reporting, a stronger visual identity and a new logo, and dozens of community workshops all over the world. It was clear in my heart that it was time to go when it was time to go.

The ramp is an excellent size for BMX.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to do good for skateboarding young people and the people who love them. Being supported to pursue skatepark advocacy on a national level was an amazing and exquisite experience.