By Stewart Resmer Santa Monica
Excuse me for rolling across the floor laughing my tookas off when I read that the building at Ocean Park and Main Street has earned historical status because of a skateboard genre that some say was spawned there (“Dogtown isn’t going anywhere,” Nov. 15, page 1).
This is perfectly laughable when one stops to consider that the skateboard generation probably started in the Depression era, when some one took a scrap of wood, a couple of roller-skate wheels and a soap box, and made a kid’s toy out of them.
Later, in the early ’60s, when these “Lords of Dogtown” weren’t old enough to walk home from school by themselves, otheras of my generation in junior high school and high school woodshop classes began to form skateboards and took on the Marine Street hill at Fourth Street with steel wheels that showered sparks as we dumped every time in thrill rides that defied sanity. Even Highland Avenue down towards Marine was a bone-breaker, and to this day, I’ve not seen the new riders of the purple rash dare try our feats.
The idea that these egomaniacs claim they are heirs to a generations-old involvement because they sold magazines and made a movie about themselves, and gave no credit to those peers — both male and female — is the height of hubris that the city bought in on when hysterical status was conferred on that building, especially when one stops to consider the real history of that building, one of Santa Monica lifeguards.
To think of all the lives saved by fine public servants who reported there for lifeguard duty, that did not rise to the level of merit, is an insult and proves only that the designation of historical status comes cheap compared to the real exploits of real working-class heroes here in Santa Monica after all.
If someone wants to bestow real honors on that structure, then be honest about it, recognize the efforts of generations past who braved the sea and all her fury and danger in a higher calling than the box office draw and the bottom line and the stroke of their own ego.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2006. Read the original PDF.