TAKE the water out of a water park, add some graffiti and community, and what do you have?
California’s Lake Dolores, just two hours from Las Vegas, used to be a 273-acre canal of man-made lakes in the 1960s, inspiring passersby to take a quick dip.
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According to SFGateIn the late 1960s, the park gained notoriety in the neighborhood with the addition of attractions such as slides and zip lines.
Eventually, Dolores took its first steps as a water park with the addition of a lazy river and an arcade, but the makeshift theme park didn’t last long.
After a failed deal in 1986 to turn the site into an RV resort, the park bounced between opening and closing for a decade and a half.
In 1999, a $20 million expansion plan added 18 new slides and a raft ride, cementing its status as a water park.
However, bad luck seemed to plague the landmark, as a series of unfortunate events befell the park’s owners and workers that same year.
In just three seasons, the park racked up $3 million in debt, and an employee was paralyzed in an accident that ended up with $4.4 million in damages in 2004, according to Business Insider.
It’s not surprising, then, that the water park filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2000, which quickly turned into Chapter 7 liquidation six months later.
Despite a $400,000 renovation project in 2002, in which the park reopened under its new name, Discovery Waterpark, its hours quickly decreased to open only on weekends, leading to its final closure in 2004.
The defunct park remained empty for years – until the arrival of unassuming skateboarders.
Rob Dyrdek and his friends used the former water park and its barren slides to perform stunts on their 2008 MTV reality show, inspiring others to do the same.
Media attention brought TrustoCorp, a group of New York artists, to the area to transform the park into an exhibition, repainting signs and buildings with artistic statements, according to Appeal to the masses.
Since then, the park has gained a new status as a public meeting place for local skateboarders and graffiti artists and a filming location for YouTubers.
The landmark even caught the attention of professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, who filmed a Mini Cooper car commercial there in 2015.
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Much more than a relic of the past, Lake Dolores has become an integral part of skater subculture and pop history.
Singer Kesha chose the location as the setting for her High Road music video in 2020.
Word of Dolores even hit international airwaves as K-pop supergroup BTS filmed their 2022 Proof Live mini-concert on their grounds.
The show, streamed live on YouTube, has racked up more than 24 million views to date.
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Kilian Martin, a freestyle skateboarder, told SFGate that despite the years that had passed, Dolores felt “untouched, like she was barely closed.”
“I love skating in a place like this, much better than skating in a skate park, where it seems like everything was designed for you to do certain tricks in certain places,” he said.“
But a water park… it’s not made for skateboarding, but it has all the potential for you to be creative and do things that have never been done.”
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
