> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # No fakie in saving skateboard history - URL: https://www.smdp.com/no-fakie-in-saving-skateboard-history/ - Published: 2007-02-05T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T23:11:26.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Community, Main St, #archive-import A FEW YEARS AGO, CITY OFFICIALS agreed to build a long-delayed skatepark. Many skateboarders asked for it to be located at the base of Bicknell Street at “Cactus Park.” After all, what would be more fitting and historic than to honor modern skate culture with a skateboard park where street-style skateboarding was perfected? Not in Santa Monica, where historic recognition is often capricious or just convenient. City Hall decreed that the municipal skatepark would be built be on a grassy patch at 14th Street and Olympic Boulevard adjacent to the Memorial Park gym. Called “The Cove,” it’s now open, complete with admission fees and without night lighting. Skateboarding and surfing are quintessential California experiences — cultural icons because they’ve not only influenced the way people play, relax and exercise, but have impacted fashion, entertainment, music and our basic lifestyle. Skateboarding’s roots are right here in the Ocean Park and north Venice neighborhoods affectionately known as “Dogtown.” Thirty-six years ago, the epicenter of the skate movement was the retail property at 2001-2011 Main Street, at the corner of Bay Street, that housed Skip Engblom’s Zephyr Skate Shop and Jeff Ho’s surfboard shaping, airbrushing and sales operation. Zephyr was the home to the elite Zephyr Skate Team, known as the “Z-Boys.” Their radical style of skateboarding and off-the-wall punk attitude played a major role in forming the skateboarding subculture. The “Z-Boys” included locals such as Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Bob Biniak, Stacy Peralta, Shogo Kubo, Wentzle Ruml IV, Peggy Oki, Jim Muir, Engblom, Ho and others. Their youthful exploits have been featured in two recent movies — a documentary, “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” and a fictionalized feature film, “Lords of Dogtown.” In the early and mid-1970s, the Santa Monica and Venice neighborhoods around the Zephyr shop is where the founders of modern skateboarding polished their skills and ignited skate culture around the globe. They perfected their skills on nearby Bicknell Street “Hill,” around the former Pacific Ocean Park, in empty neighborhood swimming pools and local schoolyards. The current Horizons West Surf Shop occupies the former Zephyr/Jeff Ho space. Thirty years later, it’s still a destination for skate and surf pilgrims from all over the world in search of their Mecca. When signs were posted on the property announcing the building’s impending demolition last fall to make way for a new “mixed use” project with retail space and apartments, skateboarders and surfers were shocked. Julie Doar’s family has owned the property for close to 50 years. She withdrew the demolition permit pending a plan to incorporate recognition of the site as the birthplace of skateboarding, while still being able to redevelop her family’s real estate holdings. To her credit, Doar has been soliciting community input (Daily Press, Jan. 30, page 1) about how the new project could commemorate or include the Horizons/Zephyr experience. I’m gratified that this new generation of skateboarders and surfers have a sense of history. To obliterate what little is left of the early history of the iconic California surf and skate subculture is disheartening, and unfortunate. Although not architecturally significant, the current site is a cultural landmark. To lose it would be to lose a part of our history. It was pure chance that some young entrepreneurs started a cultural revolution in these rundown storefronts in 1971\. The property owner has a right to develop and shouldn’t be denied the right to develop. Some have recommended building a museum or shrine at the site. But, I don’t think that’s keeping with the aggressive, rough-and-tumble Z-Boys’ image. Besides, why saddle the property owner with maintaining space for a memorial that doesn’t generate income? Maybe it’s time for some of the wealthier “Z-Boys” and the skateboarding industry to get involved and find a solution satisfactory both for the property owner and those who wish to remember where a significant part of our modern culture was born. The most fitting tribute would have been a kick-ass Cactus Park skate facility, but that’s another lost opportunity, Santa Monica style. So, somewhere in Dogtown, maybe someone will erect a statue of a skateboarder with a raised middle finger on one hand and a “blunt” in the other. When he isn’t ollying up steps, curbs or the neighbor’s cat, Bill Bauer *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 5, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/020507.pdf?ref=smdp.com)