This past week an amazing exhibit opened up that I hope everyone can get to see sometime in the next five months. The California Heritiage Museum has worked with several skateboard historians to gather a plethora of boards, skates, photos & wheels together under one roof.
The museum is located just off Ocean Park in Santa Monica, California. Almost set in the heart of the original Dogtown, where skateboarding crawled out of the ocean & onto the streets. The old two story house/museum has been ronvated to help bring each visitor back in time to what many of the homes in California looked like when the area was first developing.
As you wander through the bottom floor, gazing upon roller skate relics & a new style of soap box racer you can't help but wonder how the search ever began for such items, let alone who had them?! Some of my favorites were the older photos of kids riding the old plank & box scooter racers.
Up the stairway their is two great displays of skateboards as they evolved into a trendy childs toy, taking on the shape of small surf boards. Some of my favorites were on these walls.
As the exhibit snakes around the top floor of the house, visitors see the progression of board shapes, wheel materials, and the varrying bright & evolving graphics that accompany the boards from day one. I even saw the very first board I had in 1988!!
Lastly, you come to some of the newest boards on the wall (pictured above) made by Girl Skateboards. These are a tribute to the history of our sport & an homage to the past. These boards display a history that is important for future generations of riders to understand, to help them see where their sport came from. Thank you so much to the California Heritage Museum for putting together such an amazing exhibit for the public to see.
CALIFORNIA HERITAGE MUSEUM MAP
