Inside Sydney’s Abandoned Building Skate Scene

Have you seen "Abandoned" on SBS VICELAND? It's about skateboarder Rick McCrank exploring abandoned places. It's on at 10:15 Tuesday nights. That's channel 32 on your remote.

All it takes is some overgrown grass, an overflowing letterbox or a boarded-up doorway for people to notice a building is empty. That's generally when the junkies, amateur photographers, squatters, urban explorers, and bored teenagers move in. Skateboarders have also been known to commandeer these urban spaces for their own purposes. And while turning an abandoned building into a skatepark takes a lot of work and some level of law breaking, it's arguably skaters who show the most creativity and dedication towards improving these places.

The DIY skate scene started in the US and while Australia's version doesn't have as many derelict buildings, we try our best. Cameron Sparkes, who's been part of Sydney's scene for about 20 years, says the first DIY spot he skated was out in Macquarie Park, a fair hike west of the city. Sparkes explains, "It was practically an entire indoor skatepark that these dudes had built in an abandoned factory," adding, "the place was riddled with asbestos." Whether the skaters built it in ignorance or indifference to the danger of asbestos, it became a symbol of their commitment. "It just goes to show that we'll take anything. The dedication is there," says Sparkes. That particular DIY got knocked down and redeveloped pretty soon after, but that's to be expected when you build a skate-spot in an abandoned building.

Vaucluse High School shut down in 2006, and it wasn't long before local skaters knocked up a mini ramp in one of the classrooms. The assembly hall was set up like a little plaza, with rails, ledges and a gap off the stage. It functioned as a DIY spot for years until someone allegedly lit the place on fire in 2010. From that point it largely stayed vacant and dishevelled until 2014, when it was torn down and redeveloped into a retirement home. That was a pretty good run, as far as these things go. Most DIY spots last for a fleeting moment, or get destroyed before anyone even gets a proper chance to skate them. That's part of the reason for Burnside's infamy—it's lasted so long.

Sparkes explains, "In Sydney especially, a lot of the really, really good DIY spots have been demolished, simply because of the fast and unstoppable growth that we're experiencing here at the moment." It's an obvious challenge. In a city where real estate prices have ascended into a realm that's unaffordable for many, and outright absurd for most, finding a vacant slice of the city is only getting harder. "Nothing's sacred anymore," Sparkes says, "Any kind of disused space in Sydney where you think, 'We could build something here, no one's going to come and utilise this space.' You're crazy—of course it's going to get used."

These days, Australia's most notable DIY spot is called Portside (an appropriation of Oregon's famous Burnside) and it's on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. To get there, you walk past some sporting fields and up a little dirt road into a small quarry, then there's an old, fire-damaged Telecom building surrounded by bush. Inside, there's a gnarly concrete bowl banked up against the inner walls of the building and even the window frames are skateable features. If you know who to ask, it's easy enough to find, though like most DIY spots, the location isn't freely broadcast to the masses.

Ben de Rome, a local skate-rat who helped out with the late stages of building and painting Portside, says most people would prefer to keep the location a secret. This is partly because the legality of the spot is questionable at best, and partly because there's a sentimental element to the place. One of the guys who orchestrated the building of Portside—Nick "Speedy" Degotardi—passed away while construction was ongoing. The building is now scrawled with tributes to him and his legacy within the skate community.

Despite the legal illegitimacy of the place, Ben says the cops and council are pretty understanding of what it has become. "The council use [the area] as a dumping ground for green waste and always show an interest when dropping stuff off" he says, "And the cops don't mind as long as we keep noise down." It's a refreshingly positive outcome for a DIY, but this recognition is informal and unofficial. As far as the locals are concerned, it's best to fly under the radar.

While Australia boasts an abundance of high quality, government funded skateparks, DIY spots will always be an integral part of skateboarding's fabric. DIY spots just have a different vibe. They're rougher and gnarlier and more challenging to skate than skateparks. And despite the fact that the obstacles you'll find in a DIY generally range from quite-difficult-to-skate, to sketchy-as-fuck, people never really complain about them. This is probably because they're funded and built by skateboarders, rather than governments. Your average DIY park probably cost a shitload of time and money, but it has no market value. As Sparkes puts it: "There's this aura that it's temporary; it's not going to be there forever and it feels like someone could come down and wreck it at any moment."

Follow Nat on Twitter