OC’s Skate Park To Mark 40 Years

OCEAN CITY — The Ocean Bowl will celebrate its 40th Anniversary on Friday, Aug. 19, from noon to 7 p.m., at the skate park on 3rd Street and St. Louis Avenue.

Skaters will be able to skate for free, while enjoying live music, skate jam sessions, one tick pony events, door prizes and an Ocean Bowl heritage awards ceremony.

The Ocean Bowl Skate Park is the oldest operating municipal skate park in the United States. Following the rise in popularity of skateboarding in the 1970s, the Ocean City Council banned skateboarding on the streets within city limits. This prompted many skaters and their parents to attend the next council meeting to ask that a space be provided for them to pursue their sport.

By the first week of June 1976, the park opened. At that time, the facility consisted of a four-foot deep asphalt bowl that proved so successful that a larger bowl was quickly added. In 1984, this “big bowl” was structurally weakened by successive tropical storms and was removed the following year. It was succeeded by an 11-foot high, 28-foot wide metal-surfaced half pipe, which served not only to replace the lost bowl, but also to respond to the changing demands of skateboarding and the huge popularity of vertical ramps at the time.

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