Glad to have found your site. I live and work in Alexandria now but grew up in nearby Falls Church and skated at both Skateworld and the Mall Wall back in 1977, ’78, 79 and ’80 I think. I don’t have any photos but do have other mementos from those 2 parks and others including Skateworld and Mall Wall T-shirts, a Skateworld contest poster, Skateworld letterhead, newspaper ads and many skateboard articles from those years. I was in school studying graphic design back then and ended up doing some graphic work for the parks, designing the Skateworld skatepark logo, the Mall Wall skatepark logo and a logo for the St. Charles Skatepark out in Waldorf, MD. I still have all of the original art for those logos as well as copies of some print ads, their letterhead and even a business card for Dan “The Wildman” Resendes, one of the owners of Skateworld if I recall. I also have reprints of a skateboard poster that I printed up and marketed back then. After the Mall Wall briefly closed in 1978, it was bought by Skateworld and re-opened. Skateworld was located at 3700 Wheeler Ave. in Alexandria. None of the old park still exists, a building is there now with the Child & Family Network Center.
Back in 2002 and 2003 I worked with the community group here in Alexandria pushing the city to build the first public skatepark. I designed the logo for that skatepark, designed the park T-shirt, ads, flyers, stickers, banners, etc. samples of all of which I still have. That park opened in 2003 and is still open and appears to be doing well.
I have recently been looking back at this old skatepark material as a new skateboard shop has recently opened in Alexandria, “Dust Farm Custom Skateboards”, 1608 King St. The owner has some classic and vintage skateboard memorabilia around his shop. We were thinking of putting out a new T-shirt that reprints the logos and some information about the old Alexandria area skateparks from the 1970s-80’s. As I recall, all of the area skateparks, Skateworld, Mall Wall and the St. Charles skatepark, were all closed by about 1981, but I don’t know exactly when they all closed. (Or when they officially opened either)
So If anyone has photos or any other material about any of those skateparks, I would be interested. There were also 2 other skateparks in this area in the late 1970s-early 80s but that I wasn’t involved with, Skateboarding U.S.A which was out W. 66, off Suddly Rd., and Freestyle Skatepark of Rt. 355 in Fredrick, MD. I only skated there once in the early 1980s,
For any material about these former Washington DC, northern Virginia skateparks, please contact me. Brian Marquis at
Brian@MarquisGraphicDesign.com 703 519-7916.