Growing up in West Oakland isn’t easy. Right across the bay from shiny San Francisco, the struggling city is riddled with gangs and has one of the highest homicide and robbery rates in the country. It’d be easy for the skateboarding scene to die off, or not exist at all, under such difficult circumstances, but Keith “K-Dub” Williams is making sure that doesn’t happen.
In 2008, the full-time art teacher decided to take matters into his own hands and approached the city to open up a skatepark right in the heart of West Oakland. With no funding to speak of, K-Dub built ramps out of found wood and funded other materials out of his own pocket while encouraging local skaters to get involved to help build the park up completely from scratch.
The park solidified itself in 2014 when Levi’s Skateboarding partnered up with K-Dub and upgraded the park from old, repurposed wood to full concrete. For our newest installment of Locals, we talked with K-Dub, a founding father of West Oakland’s skate scene and the lead organizer of Town Park as it continues it’s second phase of construction.
Comments
Popular
-
THE RISE AND FALL OF PRO MODEL SKATE SHOES
While there are still some exceptions, the signature shoe has largely evaporated from the skateboard industry. But, why?
-
A CHAT WITH LUDVIG HAKANSSON, THE OLDEST SOUL IN SKATEBOARDING
The man loves to read Nietzche, skates in some expensive vintage gear, and paints in his own neoclassical-meets-abstract-expressionist style.
-
A LOOK THROUGH THE GLASSES OF VINCE PALMER, AKA CHICKEN LITTLE
Get to know the 18-year-old German repping Baker and Supreme in Milan.
-
JOHN GARDNER ON STEPPING AWAY FROM PRO SKATING AND HIS NEXT CHAPTER
"I’m sure I could have kept my career going for a while, and it was tempting to do that because I was making really good money, but I felt strongly I needed to do something else."
-
WHO ARE THE SKATERS RESURRECTING ROCK CLIMBING IN UPPER MANHATTAN?
We met up with Joel Popoteur, an employee at Supreme and long-time skater to learn about his outdoor movement.
June 18, 2015 4:20 pm
Kdub is a BOSS.
Great work everyone all around on this 1.
June 19, 2015 12:06 am
Yeah, KDub seems like a great guy. That’s really cool that he spearheaded that movement and got stuff done. Good story, Jenkem.
June 19, 2015 1:16 am
Great job KDub
June 20, 2015 5:32 pm
he rules