EMB, the Colosseum of street skateboarding, falls in 2026 — why this spot changed everything

The Vaillancourt fountain dismantled as early as March. The plaza razed for a $50 million construction project. And with it, the global birthplace of street skateboarding. EMB is dying, and we’ll tell you why it’s far more than just nostalgia.

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1989 — An earthquake opens a plaza

On October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake knocked down the Embarcadero Freeway, the double highway that blocked the bay view from Market Street. In a few months, San Francisco dismantled the ruins and found itself with a giant plaza open to the water, paved with red bricks, featuring a brutalist Vaillancourt fountain that looks like a Soviet sculpture fallen from the sky.

Skaters didn’t take three weeks to show up. Embarcadero Plaza became EMB. Three letters that would redefine global street skateboarding for the decade.

The Golden Age 1989-1993 and Mayor James Kelch

Before EMB, a spot was a curb, two stairs, a bench. One element at a time. Embarcadero flipped that logic. Ledges of all heights, tiered stair sets, gaps, banks, smooth brick paving: the entire area was a testing ground. A rider would land a trick on a small ledge. Then take it to the big one. Then down the stairs. It was the first spot in the world where you could grind a progression in a single session.

The scene revolved around a character who became a legend: James Kelch, nicknamed “the Mayor of EMB.” He approved lines, judged tricks, yelled when you crossed the line. No written rules. Just a street code, enforced by those who skated the spot every day.

The Pro Factory: Carroll, Gonzales, Watson, McBride

A non-exhaustive list of those who carved their reputation on the bricks: Mike Carroll, Henry Sanchez, Jovontae Turner, Mark Gonzales, Karl Watson, Lavar McBride, Jim Thiebaud, Jeremy Wray. Carroll’s backside lipslide on the kinked ledge circulated in photos in every magazine worldwide and ended up copied in dozens of skateparks.

EMB also inspired the “Streets” level in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Yes: that level you played on repeat as a kid, with the brutalist fountain in the middle and the brick ledges, it’s a reproduction of EMB. Neversoft literally copied the plaza to sell street skateboarding to the rest of the world.

Special mention for Henry Sanchez: his part in Plan B’s Questionable (1992), largely filmed at EMB, single-handedly redefined what a technical skater could do on a ledge. Almost all the foundational videos of the decade passed through the plaza.

2026: The construction project that kills the myth

In 1995, security started screwing skate-stoppers on all the ledges. The best lines closed off. The scene migrated to Pier 7, then to Brown Marble and the Federal Building. EMB survived as a residual spot, visited like a holy site by young people who came to put their board on the original paving stones.

2026 changes everything. BXP (owner of Embarcadero Center) and SF Parks & Recreation are launching a public-private project worth $50 million to transform the plaza. First act: the dismantling of the Vaillancourt fountain, approved by the Board of Supervisors after an appeal was rejected. The operation can begin as early as March 2026.

The Ted Barrow petition and what’s left to save

Ted Barrow, skateboarding historian and face of Thrasher’s This Old Ledge series, is launching “Save Embarcadero Plaza.” The petition exceeded 2,000 signatures in one day. The demands are concrete: keep skateable elements in the new design, preserve the fountain’s ledge, install a plaque recognizing the plaza’s role in skateboarding history.

The parallel with Love Park in Philadelphia is brutal. Love Park was razed in 2016 without the slightest concession to the skateboarding community. The granite blocks ended up at auction, sold to nostalgics as relics. San Francisco is making the same mistake again, 3,000 kilometers away.

To set foot on EMB before the bulldozers arrive, you have a few months left. The original bricks are still there. The residual ledges too. The Vaillancourt fountain, however, won’t be there in 2027. This is probably the last window to skate the ground where Mike Carroll, Mark Gonzales, and Karl Watson laid down the rules of modern street skateboarding.

A practical tip if you go: BART to Embarcadero Station, exit on the Market Street side, the plaza is right in front of you. As with South Bank in London, the question isn’t whether EMB will disappear, but how much of its soul we’ll have saved in what follows.