Contest No. 3: How Do You Skate the City?

Update: The contest has closed. However, we are still collecting stories about how you skate the city. We will periodically be featuring them as part of our Community Initiatives. So keep them coming!

Here the stories we have so far here.

In the 1970s skaters Skip Engblom, Jeff Ho and the Z-Boys tore-up the streets up with original techniques derived from surfing, thereby setting in motion a revolution that would make Venice the skateboarding capital of the world. That generation owned their local streets - skating the Venice Pavilion, abandoned pools and wide-open asphalt schoolyards - and their insight that their neighborhood's static rails, angles and slopes could be transformed by a board and four wheels birthed a raft of legends: Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Jim Muir, Stacy Peralta, and Peggy Oki.

KCET Departures wants to hear your skateboarding story. How has skateboarding changed your experience of the city? How has skateboarding changed the spaces around you? The best submitted story - we'll take photo, video, audio, and/or written tales - will win a one-of-a-kind Santa Monica Airlines skateboard designed and signed by Skip Engblom. You can tell us your story via email, Facebook, or through our online registration.







Here's are some ideas to get you started:

• How do you experience the city on a skateboard?
• Without skateboarding I would never have...
• I started skating because...
• The craziest thing I've done on a skateboard was...
• Why are you the real deal?
• I didn't have any money to skateboard so...
• What separates you from the rest of the shredders?
• I couldn't skate, so...

Skip Engblom co-founded Zephyr Productions and was owner of the Zephyr skate team. He currently owns and runs the skateboard company, Santa Monica Airlines (SMA).