Finding friends at the bottom of the hill: a love letter to San Francisco

Skaters have paved their way into the culture here by bombing hills (there’s an annual Dolores Hill Bomb) and marking their territory at famous spots like Embarcadero, Waller St. ledges, and Potrero. At Embarcadero’s Vaillancourt Fountain, I caught up with three SF transplants — Ashley Habr, Dayana Young, and Cori Saffel — to talk about how moving to the city influenced their life and progressed their relationship with skateboarding.

Ashley grew up in San Mateo, CA and has been living in SF for 8 years. She went to San Francisco State University for Broadcast and Communications Arts and now works in Biotech. Growing up in the suburbs on the peninsula, Ashley never saw many skaters around and was more into team sports like soccer. Even when she started learning to skate in 2012 she was still unaware of a bigger skate community. It wasn’t until she moved to the city and met folks that were born and raised here that she finally had people to skate with. When she eventually had the courage to go to the skatepark, she made more friends and met more women skaters. She and Cori started skating together and created For All You Girl Skaters (FAUGS), an all women skate crew. When Ashley began volunteering her time to help with Skate Like a Girl (SLAG) her network of skaters in SF really grew. “The skate community in San Francisco is pretty tight. It’s one big family to me.”

Ashley got into skating through photography because she was inspired by the skate photos she saw online. When she’s not on her board, Ashley is behind the fisheye lens shooting photos of her friends skating on her film camera. I asked about the skate and art scene overlapping and she mentioned, “[my friends] are super creative with their art and mold the two together by putting their art onto shirts, drawing and painting on skateboards or even with photography.” She told me, “I think that art and creativity all have to do with skateboarding. We all create our own style with skating and we all create our own style with art.”

Ashley’s favorite part of living out here is definitely her friends and the community. “I’m from the Bay. I always talk about leaving, but I literally cannot leave this place. I love each and every person I meet. Just running into people in the streets that you know — there’s never a dull moment.”

She’s inspired by her good friend Pablo Ramirez, who passed away in a skate incident last April. Pablo was a loved member of GX1000. His passing affected Ashley and the entire skateboarding community, from New York (where he grew up) to San Francisco; skaters all around the US mourned his death. When Ashley tries to explain the sense of community throughout the scene with folks who don’t skate (like her family) she feels like they will never understand because they don’t have this kind of community to relate to. “Ever since Pablo passed away, it’s even harder to leave everybody [in SF]. A lot of my friends who are in other places always say that they don’t have anyone and they want to be back in the city to be back with each other. Because Pablo inspired all of us, you know? After his passing, I had never seen such a community be so there for each other and care for each other. No matter your age, race, your sexual orientation, everybody was there for each other.”

Cori grew up in San Diego, CA. She moved up here at the age of 18 to attend SFSU, met Ashley and found skateboarding. They started going to the skatepark together and that’s where her love for skateboarding began. “Having that solid crew behind me at the skateparks really helped. If you were to skate anywhere, SF is the place to do it. It’s only 7 by 7 so you really just run into everyone all the time… it’s just like a big family. That’s just what I love about it so much.”

Cori helped revamp the SF Bay Area SLAG chapter by handling their social media. Her favorite part of volunteering was that she met other folks who would talk about how SLAG was inspiring them to learn how to skate. In 2017, Cori curated an art show for Sk8Bae, a SLAG annual fundraiser. It was one of her first big events that she helped plan and coordinate. She was responsible for curating the art show portion of the fundraiser and choosing a lot of artwork centered around women skateboarding or women photographers and artists. With this experience, she learned about planning events and coordinating, while remaining focused on her own art direction. “It’s like taking everyone’s vision and making it one. It’s a really cool thing.”

Dayana was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio and started skating at the young age of 13, where she was inspired and supported by her friends. “I would say it was a lot of figuring it out for myself and also asking for tips from some of my guy friends.”

She skated mostly skateparks until she came out to SF where she started skating more street. Her journey to the Bay began when she set out to visit two best friends who recently moved out here. She was tired of going to and from the city and always had the urge to move to sunny California. Living in the suburbs of Ohio made it hard to find a group to skate with, especially since she didn’t live close to downtown. Now that she’s living in SF, her skating is progressing, especially since she can take public transit and get around easier. Now she gets to skate her favorite spots like Embarcadero and Union Square. “I can go across the bridge if I need to and come back. It’s a lot more convenient out here even though I don’t have a car.”

Dayana is an artist with different techniques, mediums and styles. Recently, she’s been into a lot of tattoo flash and traditional, and Japanese artwork. She would eventually like to get into tattooing because she loves line work. Her first commission was from Cindy Whitehead at Girl Is Not a 4 Letter Word. The piece was drawings of Ellen O’neil, Patti McGee, and Lauren Thornhill doing freestyle tricks in fun, 70s fashion.

“I kind of just draw things that come to mind, or something cool comes to mind when I’m on the train or something, I’ll just jot it down real quick and elaborate on it more when I get home and give it more detail.”

Dayana describes SF as a “community”, because there’s a strong sense of belonging, especially when someone is going through a hard time. When Pablo passed away, she could see how much closer everyone became because of it. “You never know when you will see someone again. We just appreciate each other more because of those things that have happened. We make sure we hug each other and say bye and be there for each other when we need it.”

All of these ladies have a few things in common: skateboarding, art, and a sense of community in the skate scene of San Francisco. I asked each of them to describe the SF skate scene in one word and they answered Fast (Ashley), Family (Cori), and Community (Dayana). After spending a day with them skating in SF, I know exactly what they mean.