Wade Speyer, 1991: how a hidden San Francisco ledge gave its name to all the “hubbas”?

1991, San Francisco. Wade Speyer hears about a ledge “at the corner of the street,” heads there with a photographer, and nails a grind in black‑and‑white. Twenty years later, the city bulldozes the spot. In the meantime, the name’s taken on a new meaning: today, everywhere in the world, a ledge along a stairwell is called a “hubba.” How did a shady corner make it into skate’s lexicon?

A ledge “at the corner of the street,” 1991

Back in the early ’90s, if you’re skating in San Francisco, you’ll pass the Embarcadero. The big plaza at the base of the towers, across from the Ferry Building, is EMB: steps, benches, granite, and a scene that’s going to shape a lot of modern street. Wade Speyer hangs out there like everyone else. He’s the big guy in the crew, the one who takes everything in stride, later a Black Label legend.

One day, he’s skating “The 7,” a set of steps in the plaza. He tells the story on the Made For The Grave blog in 2010: “I heard someone talk about a ledge just at the corner. So Bryce Kanights and I went, and he shot me doing a nosegrind.���

Small detail that matters to purists: the archives talk about a crooked grind. TransWorld and the NBD Finder database date the photo to 1991, signed Bryce Kanights, in black‑and‑white. Speyer remembers a nosegrind. What stays the same is the rest: it’s the first documented move on that ledge, and he was the one who nailed it.

Two six‑step staircases, and a name that didn’t come from skate

On paper, the spot isn’t a monster. Two sets of six wide steps, bordered on each side by big concrete ledges. A crosswalk between two levels, near Justin Herman Plaza. The kind of place where nobody stops.

Exactly. The corner is tucked away, and it draws a crowd that doesn’t want to be seen. In San Francisco Bay slang, the “hubbas” are the crack. The spot becomes the “hubba hideout”: Hubba Hideout. Skaters keep the nickname as is. No one thinks it’ll spread.

What makes the spot tough isn’t the height, it’s the shape. The ledge drops with the stair: you don’t grind flat, you grind on a slope, with a brick landing at the end. You need speed, commitment, and the willingness to hit hard when it doesn’t land.

1992-1998: the covers keep coming

After Speyer’s photo, the spot hit the mags, and everything accelerated. ESPN, at the time of the demolition, counted the covers shot on site. Mike Carroll graced the cover of Thrasher in December 1992. Carl Shipman in January 1994, pulling a frontside bluntslide. Fred Gall in February 1995, switch 5‑0. Brian Anderson nailed a 50‑50 in 1996.

And in 1998, Eric Koston was on the cover of TransWorld’s Photo Annual with a backside noseblunt slide. Karl Watson was there that day: “I was just next to Koston’s backside noseblunt, and I still couldn’t believe it.” If you want to see what Koston became after, we’ve told the story his departure from Lakai for Nike SB.

Every cover brings new skaters. The spot became a must‑stop for every pro heading to San Francisco, just like EMB right next door. We’ve already covered how EMB, Love Park and Pulaski shaped the 2000s: Hubba belongs to the same family.

The city strikes back, skaters rebel

Eventually, the city got involved. By the late ’90s, ledges were covered in skatestoppers, those metal bumps screwed into concrete to stop grinding. Spot gone? Not for long. The bumps disappeared: according to ESPN, they were “meticulously removed” by an anonymous pro. Sessions resumed.

In March 2007, a new attempt: the brick landing was ripped out and replaced with sand. Skaters laid wooden boards on the sand and kept going. In the cover photo taken in June 2010, you still see the little bumps on the right‑hand ledge, with Paul Rodriguez sizing up the spot. Five years earlier, he’d left eS for Nike SB, we tell that story here.

End of the game in January 2011. ESPN announced it on January 22: the top ledge was ripped out the day before, the rest followed suit. The stairs and ledges are demolished. Twenty years after Speyer’s photo, the original Hubba Hideout is gone.

So why do all stair ledges get called “hubbas”?

Because the spot brought together three things that no one else had at the same time.

First, a shape that didn’t have a name yet. A ledge that runs down a stairwell in the early ’90s was neither a curb nor a handrail. A word was needed, and the first famous example gave it.

Then, repetition. Carroll, Shipman, Gall, Anderson, Koston: six years of coverage on the same concrete. When you saw the same shape in a Thrasher and a TransWorld spread throughout your adolescence, you started calling it by its name.

Finally, the nickname itself. “Hubba” is short, punchy, and tells the story of a street spot, not a skatepark. That’s why it stuck. Today, in New York, there’s the Black Hubba. Elsewhere, the Clipper Hubba. Anywhere else, any skater will tell you, “there’s a hubba at the bottom of the square,” for a ledge along a stair.

The spot disappeared in 2011. The word, however, stayed. And it all started with a Wade Speyer grind in 1991 on a ledge he’d heard about by chance, on a corner.

Is there a hubba near you? Tell us what you call it among your crew, and what trick you’d love to land there. Drop it in the comments ↓