Venice Beach has one of the world’s most iconic skateparks. It’s massive, with equally massive crowds lining up to get a first hand look at the current scene in skating’s birthplace. Considering the history of the sport, the culture and what it took to build Venice’s skatepark, it makes for quite the poetic setting.
What the average spectator in these massive crowds won’t know is how the decades-long battle between skateboarders, surfers, and civic activists against the city of Los Angeles played out.
There are 40-plus years of skateboarding history in this town, going all the way back to the Z-Boys themselves. But it’s not like Jay Adams and crew laid the foundation of the sport and watched it skyrocket to popularity. Even here there were struggles to fuel the culture of skating. Parks were closed down and people in the community started imagining how the lifestyle would look for the next generation. Their dream was to give Dogtown the iconic park we all see today. And from the looks of this documentary, it took one helluva ride to make that a reality.
