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"Sensation Basin was conceived in 1975 as a "hang out' for skateboarding. None of us knew what we were doing except that we knew it was fun and was going to be more fun. I managed the place for skaters by skaters and always encouraged camaraderie and pushing the limits." Phil

I started enjoying skateboarding on a 2 X 4 with nailed on steel wheels in 1965 at Britts Department Store parking lot in New Jersey and it was a blast. On windy days when we couldn't skydive we'd use our parachutes to pull us around the parking lot on the boards. I was working and skydiving at the Lakewood Sport Parachute Center, one of the early places organized for the sport. In 1975 I realized that skateboarding was going to need a location, like a skydiving center, instead of just "barnstorming". I decided to build a location that had not only skateboarding but other "backyard" sports. My original plan was to have a place for skateboarding, roller skating, a fishing hole, volleyball, badminton and all those sports that city recreational departments didn't build. Skateboarding was to be the "anchor" sport. My ex wife; Marlin, also a skydiver, and I decided to take the risk.

I came up with it after thinking about pools, bowls, and adrenaline. The original name was going to be Gainesville's Backyard.

Jimbo Skiles was my first employee and was very enthusiastic, a skater, and organized the beginnings of skateboard competitions. Tony Romano was a great skater and employee from the University of Florida. I had talked with many of the local skaters during the design phase including Rodney Mullen and Randy Sperring. I forget many of the names now and all my records have been lost so I apologize to Roger and the rest who helped shape the place. You would need to put out a call for memories to get everyone. Soon after I started planning I found out about Skateboard City in Port Orange and went to see Chuck Cromie who also helped my find a contractor with at least some sort of experience in weird concrete design work. After we were open for a while Barry Zaritsky came on board and we made a great effort to encourage safety into the sport. This was a time before plastic knee pads allowed skaters to slide. The "old" way was to roll when you bailed and people were really getting slammed. So many new innovations that are taken for granted needed to be developed and we were on that cutting edge. We also knew that whatever we built would become obsolete rather fast so we had planned to keep adding new features as we grew. Sadly, county governments make you spend money on things like paved parking lots that eat up the money we could have used later to propel our growth.

How many years was Sensation Basin in business? And what do you feel caused > so many parks to close?

Sensation Basin opened in 1977 and lasted four and a half years. I, my family, employees, volunteers and of course all the skaters put a lot of effort into the place. It was a business that needed a few years to solidify in order to work out all the growing pains of being such a new enterprise. There were no business models and I was not the greatest business mind on the planet. Things were really starting to come together in late 1980. We got our costs down and we had an understanding about the ups and downs of the market because of weather, school activities and those elements beyond our control. I think most parks died in the early 80s because of a few factors. The media was having a field day "selling" the injuries around the country and getting insurance became impossible. At the same time, lawyers were given the opportunity to advertise "have you been injured?" on television. The economic recession arrived as did the advent of the backyard ramp. These things made raising capital for growth impossible. I was scrounging for lumber to build a half pipe with my only employee, George Marquardt when the final blow came from a lawyer. He represented a BMX rider whose bike went down on a moist piece of flat concrete he had been riding on all day, it's Florida, it rains. Now with no insurance, lawyers screaming at me like I was some kind of criminal, everyone telling me "I told you so", Sensation Basin slipped into memory. Depression was a step up from how I felt and I'm sure how a lot of other skatepark owners felt at the time. That same lawyer who chewed me out for letting someone ride on moist concrete later killed a bike rider on 441 when he swerved into the bike lane while picking up something he had dropped on the floorboard of his car but nothing happened to him. Don't ya just love it.

We did two Pepsi Team Challenges. I think we were the first to get Pepsi involved with skateboarding which later became a big deal for Pepsi's Mountain Dew. I have some super 8 films as well as some of the other contests I'd like to show some day. We held two WRAPS (Wild and Radical Annual Party Sessions) at the end of the year that were fun. We also had doubles contests and freestyle (before street style). We put hand prints of winners in wet concrete plaques as memories. I hid them by the tracks after the park closed but they are not there now.

I stop in to the old Basin site every couple of years to see the ghosts and hear the sounds. We had a killer speaker system. There are a few things left such as the fence, a little of the parking lot, a few of the trees and on the stop sign just as you leave the park and cross the tracks back to the "real" world there is a faded Sensation Basin sticker. Many nights during the last twenty some years I've had these dreams that the basin is still operating and I see so many happy faces enjoying the place, the building evolved into something like a southern juke joint for skaters and the place just seems to operate smoothly. I enjoyed the other parks and the people who ran them such as Kona, which the Ramos family bought out of bankruptcy after seeing Sensation Basin I'm told, Brian's Rolling Waves, Kit and Linda's Rainbow Wave, the Clearwater Park, Longwood, Tamoka Moon Forrest, Skateboard City, West Palm Beach Safari, Cadillac, Sarasota Skaterdrome and the other 200 or so other parks around the country that are now gone. Congrats to Kona!!!

I'm glad the sport has many new homes and is now recognized as being so much a part of daily life. I recently participated as an ad hoc committee member appointed by the Sarasota City Commissioners to help with our new park here. I attended meetings and gave my input as well as coordinated the logo design for the Sarasota Skateboard Park. It was good getting involved again as I don't do anymore skating, nor was I much good at it other than cruising when I was young. Thanks to Paul Schmidt remembering my skateboard films I'd show in the evenings at the Basin, I've been able to have some of that old footage included in the On Skateboarding Video Magazine feature of Rodney Mullen and on the Kona Level of the Tony Hawk 4 Video Game. Way back, Barry SIO Zaritsky and I would take our Basin skaters on tours and I'd film them and take pictures. We'd go to the Springtime Tallahassee Parade and do demos, Sean Peddie's pool, Alabama and the other Florida parks. It is nice to see Barry now on the Tony Hawk touring program as the groups trainer.

One of my memories was a skit on Saturday Night Live with John Belushi as the operator of Ralph's Roller Disco Fish Farm, possibly inspired by an article published on one of the airline's magazines about Sensation Basin. The tag line was "where you not only could skate but catch fish at the same time". Sensation Basin had one of the first, if not the first, private outdoor roller skating trails with benches built around a stocked pond filled with catfish, bass and bream. I was quite proud of that effort and had ten local farmers raising fish for me. It became a place where parents could sit by a pond and catch dinner for $1.50 a pound and the rest of the family could go roller skating or skateboarding. It made for a comfortable atmosphere. From feeling the extreme adrenaline of doing an invert to catching a fish to meeting someone special in your life. That was Sensation Basin.

The basin is my favorite memory from my 33 or so years of skating. I remember every line like it was yesterday....It will never be better than those curvy banks and those awesome walls with their 4ft of pure vertical. I spent almost everyday skating the best park ever during my early to late teen years....what a place to practice! It was definitely a second home to me.

* I'd pay a lot of money for just one more ride in the snake run. I'm still sad it's gone.

SIO Barry, Rodney (with prototype deck), and a young Tim Scroggs. (Sorry, I don't know the guy in the back, someone let me know and I'll slap his name up here.)

Glad to hear about the flashback. Random thoughts on the Basin in Gainesville include its popular nickname "Sensation Abrasion" due to its brushed concrete finish. The story goes that the construction company advised Phil that this was the latest in low-maintenance treatments for skate park surfaces. While this may have been true, it resulted in a very rough city-sidewalk surface. This caused you to lose skin if you even brushed your arm hairs near it. Pool paint was applied to certain portions of the park to decreased the macro-derm abrasion, and this worked to a large extent, but there was plenty of rough-hewn concrete left. It was also one of the last skate parks constructed with the classical "snake run" design as its centerpiece with the most vertical walls in the park, but of course the skaters never rode it like this, but instead back & forth across the vertical S-curves like it was a drawn-out bowl. There were exceptions like Bruce "Whoa Dog" Walker and local manager/dare-devil Jimbo Skiles would draw the surf lines from the imposing hill atop of the snake run, but this was still a rarity (and damn scary to watch when they did it).

Another important and later addition to the park was the roller-skating trail constructed around a pond adjacent to the bowls & runs. Its major purpose from the skater's view was to attract chicks. Sometimes there were parties with entire U.F. sororities that would come out to skate the flat track. Of course most of them were older than the sweat-soaked skaters (save for the old men GBM & Womble who were U.F. students @ the time) so few actual connections were made, but it did serve as intermittent inspiration. I guess the vision was to have a Venice CA - like skate experience, and while nicely constructed, it was hard to get away from the fact that it was a track built around a mud-pond just off a U.S. Hwy 70 miles from a coast.

P.S. anyone out there interested in a discount on laser eye surgery can also contact me!

Unknown air. But notice the vert on this wall. The girl standing next to the straight up wall gives you some perspective.

Sensation Basin was truly Mecca during the golden age of Florida skateboarding. I am proud to be associated with it. The first person to really crush it was Ed Womble. His frontside airs on the first wall of the snake run were monumental. He would fly down from the top of the take-off hill (which was a rare occurrence) and bust these mad, high-speed floaters about 2 feet out and about 12 feet long. On doubles runs he would have Bruce Mason carving frontside under him. Sick. His third-wall and pool inverts were just as big. Not flapped and stalled, just big and burly. He invented a trick in the pool called a "Wompull" that is now known as the "rock n roll". At the sad demise of the park Chris Baucom was the undisputed king. He seemed to find speed where few others could. Not a whole lot of people could do more than "wheel" the first wall but he had a full arsenal of tricks to pull out including frontside rock-n-rolls (the NASTIEST slam ever is a frontside RnR on the first wall, I am here to tell you), footplants and all kinds of his signature liptricks. The pool was his playground where he was fearless and nearly untouchable. Ask him about a trick called a "Wrongo" that somehow is called a "Boneless One" now. Or maybe we should ask Neil Blender where he saw them first.... The best California Pro I ever saw ride there was Eric Grisham. He came into town on some Variflex tour, (probably after a Kona gig). I showed him a few lines and that was it. He wired the pool very quickly and was throwing all kinds of that "vari-bot" stuff that he was known for. I had just wired "fakie 180 rock to fakie" (half 360 rock n roll) on the coping in the pool and hadn't seen anyone doing them yet, and Grisham busted one out on his first try! I was pissed. He was stalling inverts on the cope and throwing those damn varials like nothing. Homie had some skills. Very few visiting pros even got wheelers in the snake run. Shogo looked stylish on his one or two grinds that he pulled. Brad Bowman left his board in the car and just chilled on the third wall viewing area when he came to town. Florida skating owes a debt of gratitude to Phil and Jimbo for their vision and (for lack of a better word) balls for putting together a park like that.

Bruce Walker accepting trophy. Check out McGuigan on the left mugging, some things never change. And Casey Chimelinsky sitting to the left.

Clyde Rogers, frontside grind, w/Clyde Slyde. Always the surfer, check out those Katin surf trunks.

Sensation Basin was up there with my favorite parks! Like a surf -skate park, big walls to carve on. Some great skating went on there, I remember ( Who was that guy ? ) Oh yeah, Shawn Petty, How about all that speed he would get and then boost the biggest backside air !! and of-curse Kelly's front side inverts and how about Rodney Mullins freestyle at age two ?? or so it seemed , oh if I'm going to mention Rodney I must also mention Tim Scroggs . Ton's of great skating went on at the Basin, I'm sure so much more went on! I was just a visitor but I really looked forward to skating Sensation Basin ! Thanks to Phil and his staff for all there support !!

Phil and Jimbo went to Cal and did weeks of research looking at other parks before they built.

It had an excellent beginners area ( the surf run ) and various terrain all the way up to the intimidating snake run.

A skate park designed for skaters, run by skaters for skaters. Barry Zaritski ran the place for years.

Weeks after I moved to Gainesville I found out they had nautical glue and 14 pieces of coping for the pool bowl in the office,

My first day skating there I lit up with George Wilson in the parking lot and then went skating. He was killing it and I did a frontside kickturn 4' up on the first wall of the snake run. Rather meek when you are 8 feet below the lip. But I got better.

Rodney totally in entranced in the zone, love that Florida crowd...next stop Weeki Wachi.

Barrel Jumping human bodies...who is that getting ready...style check says...Joe St. Angelo??? Dan Murray?

looking from the clubhouse across the mini halfpipe thingy over to the pool bowl

Tony Romano in shop. Check out those decks behind him, Flite, Sims Taperkick, Krypto

" The basin was easily the best park in Florida in the late 70's. We would make the long drive from Daytona as often as possible to ride that place. The vert contests in the snake run are etched in my mind forever as well as doing my first good layback airs in the pool. I can still picture Clyde Rodgers dropping into the snake run as they cranked Elvis Costello's "Pump It Up" at full volume! "

Monty Sensation Basin Baucom Sucks.jpg (57890 bytes)

I had to throw this pic in the mix. This was when the Basin was getting dozed. I think the picture is Monty. The crazy thing is the spray paint graffiti. I suppose with fame either people love you or hate you. Friggin skateboarders....