Big Kid Fun: One City’s Trash is a Skateboarder’s Treasure

Written by Joshua Stohl
Edited by Dave McAlinden

In giant letters spreading across a concrete slab, a welcoming mat to this hidden gem in north Portland, are the words "Big Kid Fun." Throughout this dismal, blemished, burn-marked factory, over two dozen people have scattered about. Teenagers smoke cigarettes along the massive piece of concrete while a dozen skateboarders dominate the handmade skate park within the condemned factory. This place is not your average commissioned skate park. In fact, the seven various ramps were hand-constructed using buckets of cement, dirty Willamette River water, and mounds of garbage used as solid backing between the walls and the ramps. There are microwaves, toaster ovens, railroad spikes, and pieces of chain-link fence which protrude from behind the ramps, giving this spot a charm unlike any other.

Clad in black, youth tightly grasp Pabst and Miller High Life cans while Iron Maiden blares from a cheap boom box. The sounds of hard wheels echo through every room of the warehouse. Vacant doorways lead to various graffiti-cloaked rooms. Above the skaters, a tiny ledge no more than a foot wide stretches along the wall where three murals dominate from end to end. The smell of aerosol floods the place as graffiti writers paint upon a concrete canvas among onlookers.

Near the skate session sits a giant room that looks out over the railroad tracks and upon the river. The floor is littered with beer cans, garbage, and dozens of paint cans while the wall is saturated with graffiti nearly reaching the forty-foot ceiling. One wall displays the anxiety of rock climbers who’ve attached climbing grips, belay hooks, and chains in order to climb to a circular opening below the ceiling. Within the opening is a board allowing people into the bleak smokestack that towers through the abandoned factory. Parts of its exterior are pierced with cracks that run side to side and top to bottom, portraying decay and destruction. Stains of black smoke run along the outside window frames where only rusty steel plates hang in solitude.

The other evening I was able to go down to the warehouse with one of the skate park founders, Jeremy Wilkerson. It was freezing in the darkness so the two of us shook with cold spasms. As we approached, Wilkerson pointed out the giant gate that blocks vehicles from driving down to the factory; how he and his friends had previously clipped the security gate’s lock with a pair of bolt cutters replacing it with a combo lock allowing them the only access to drive down. “Now they snapped our lock and put their own lock back on,” Wilkerson said as he laughed at the sight of a new lock.

Just weeks earlier Wilkerson and friends were able to drive down a generator to power spot lights and a home stereo so they could skate in the dark with music. “That’s why we put our own lock on,” he says.

At age twenty, Wilkerson has been coming down to this seedy, lead-infested area for the past ten years. Even though he knows the area like the back of his hand, Wilkerson looks uneasy as he talks. It’s just the two of us in the condemned warehouse, tape recorder in my one hand, flashlight in the other. With only one flashlight I can’t seem to keep my sights focused on him because of the ceaseless paranoia. He points to the roof above the ramps to show me sunroofs that his brother sealed with greenhouse tarp. “My brother climbed up to the roof to cover the gaps,” he said. They serve as ample rain protection so skaters can skate when it’s raining.

“Me, my brother, and my friend Thomas came up here the first night and started pulling railroad ties in here to back the ramps with,” says Wilkerson. They simply wanted their own place without city rules, and not even the junkies, the security, or the large amount of garbage stood in the way of making that happen.

Wilkerson and his friends began construction nine months ago. “We spent a good five or six hours laying down cement. We spent so much time down here getting in the works of a ramp,” he says.

Before the locked gate was in place, Wilkerson and others would drive down with cement and put in work almost every day to complete the skate park. “People have been coming down here for ten, fifteen years, and it’s been nothing. It’s been exactly the way it is right now without ramps. We’ve always talked about building ramps here.”

“The first time we tried, we got half of the ramp done and some kids came and knocked it down. Our second attempt we got twenty bags of cement, slapped it all up there. We had shovels and stuff to smooth it out. We got a bunch of our other buddies to come down and they put up some money for some concrete and we all just mixed it together. We had like five or six guys getting water from the river in buckets.”

Wilkerson is clearly adamant about this place. “We built it. It’s so cool to know that we’re the ones that started this.” The skate park really came about as a strong desire to have their own personal spot without the nuisance of young kids, spectators, and police. “We wanted a place of our own to call our own. We have our own scene here. Best buddies type of thing,” says Wilkerson.

Within the last couple of months, skaters have been showing up in large numbers every day. “It turned into this legendary skate spot. Everybody knows about it,” Wilkerson explains how there was even an article in the St. John’s Sentinel about the spot.

According to Wilkerson, the warehouse was a foundry used to build boats for World War II. As we walked through the factory, I swear I saw figures lurking in the dark. This place is the “Number one sketch spot in north Portland,” Wilkerson said. The statement felt genuine as we walked to a frightening staircase that led underground beneath the factory. “Do you want to go down there?” He amusingly asked. The truth is neither one of us has any desire to explore the underground dwelling.

The public safety of the University of Portland and the Portland police don’t seem to have a problem with Wilkerson and his friends. Every time they come down they simply ask the crew to leave. “It’s always been respectable between us and them,” he says.

No one has ever gone to jail or been cited a ticket as far as Wilkerson knows, making this place an exception to the rule. Even though it’s private property and was purchased by the university two months ago, countless people still come down to drink, paint, and skate. “If the university didn’t buy this place, we would still be putting ramps in here. It’s our spot,” Wilkerson said.
I was able to speak with John Furey, associate director for media relations at the University of Portland, who told me they planned to “demolish the existing structures and secure the property until they further developed it.” Despite these plans, a new lock, and a new chain link fence with razor wire, Wilkerson and others have no intention on fleeing the area. In fact, even though the “big kid” lot will eventually be leveled, Wilkerson smiles with contentment. He knows that the skate park could not have existed without his work and the work of close friends. “We put over a thousand dollars into this place,” he says.

As we wandered about the staircase, my flashlight only allowed fifteen feet of visible light. Murals and darkness surrounded us. The cold air stabbed our hands like daggers while paranoia punished our senses. Out of nowhere a bright flash of light struck our eyes and disappeared. Gripped by silence, we tried to find the source but failed. It was all too obvious we were not alone.

“I told you this place was sketchy,” Wilkerson said.

Despite the University of Portland buying the area to expand their campus with possible athletic fields, buildings, parking, and playing spaces, Wilkerson and friends continue their big kid fun while making sure it remains legendary, allowing the youth a place to momentarily prevail among the adult world. “People from British Columbia and California know about this spot,” he says. With a smirk of satisfaction, Wilkerson hints at an idea of another secluded area that he and friends plan on transforming once again with sweat, grime, and the DIY fashion.

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Josh Stohl likes to explore the grit and grime life has to offer. This journey has enabled him to write for a variety of publications including newspapers and online magazines for the past five years. He writes about subcultures not necessarily known by the public. When he finds one, he likes to immerse himself within them. If it wasn’t for his English teacher in junior college, he would have never fallen in love with writing. He doesn’t ever want to be anybody else in life. You can read more about Josh at his blog, Stay Gold.