DeSeRT PiPeS

Skateboarding Archive of Steve Pingleton

PooLs

Arizona has hundreds of pools in the Phoenix metro area, and to find good empty pools back then, you had to be sneaky and fast. I started riding pools in grade school, about 1975-76. There were 2-3 empty pools near my school, so we would ditch classes and ride pools instead on our ball bearing wheels and Banzai – Hobie decks. Abandoned apartment complexes, empty houses up for sale, motels, public pools, anything and everything, it was all a game to us, and we were good at it…

 Dead Cat Pool was a huge burned out mansion we found with an olympic sized pool, that was skated heavily from around 1975 to about 1983, when the new owner dozed a huge pile of dirt into the deep end. In 1988, we dug it out and skated it for about 1 more month until word got out and the neighbors bummed hard on all the traffic, then it was dozed. Dead Cat was amazing, I almost lived there when I was young, I have so many stories about Dead Cat I could probably do a whole website about just that pool, but there were many more…

 The Concrete Jungle was memorable, a virtual playground for skateboarders was created when the city built a new freeway through Paradise Valley in 1990. Whole neighborhoods were bought out, nice homes with pools, and abandoned. At one point, I recall about 10 different rideable empty pools within a 2 block area.We picked the best ones to clean and skate, it was open season, and we enjoyed it for about 6 months until they were finally dozed.

 Tucson Bowl (aka:Ghost Town) and Casa Grande were rare finds, empty pools way out in the desert, like the famous Nude Bowl, with no one around to bother us. Most of the pools in town were found at abandoned houses, backyard gems that were dangerous and fun fast barges.

Players: There were so many great pool skaters in AZ, I cannot even attempt to list them all, and we had many visitors from all over the US who we shared our secret spots with. You guys who were there know who you are!!!

Film: I have probably around 20 rolls of Pool skating photos, these are just a few…

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