SKATE BORDERLAND

“Dogtown” is a nickname for Santa Monica and nearby Venice, California, a moniker the area earned when it devolved into a seaside slum during the 1970s. Its history as the birthplace of skateboard culture is featured in the Sean Penn-narrated documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” a story about a group of bad boy surfers who evolved the “passing fad” of clunky clay-wheeled skateboarding into a gracefully stylistic art form all its own.

Today, Venice Beach Skateboard Park serves as a monument of sorts to those headier days. It features a sunken, serpentine pool where nervous novices and seasoned pros take turns riding creamy waves of cement. And as you can see from the photo, skateboarding is no longer limited to just Z-Boys.

​Pictured: Molly Maginnis-Ramey