Signal Hill - 30 Years Later

It was 1975 and skateboarding was hugely popular when Jim O'Mahoney, head of the U.S. Skateboard Assn., got a call from the producer of ABC's television show, "The Guinness Book of World Records." The producer wanted to shoot a skateboarding event for the show.

As a child, growing up in Long Beach, O'Mahoney begged his parents to drive fast over the steepest section of Hill Street, an almost 30-degree incline in Signal Hill that mimicked the feeling of a roller coaster. O'Mahoney told the TV producer he could create a downhill skateboarding race on the steep Signal Hill incline, bordered by oil fields.

Read the rest of the article in the LA Times.