Old-school skaters, who learned to skate pools and ramps, continued to skate at private locations, but skating increasingly became dominated by the newer street style. Using urban props like trash cans, benches, steps and metal hand rails, these younger skate rats tore it up with new tricks. While a few vert skaters adopted the street style, a rift gradually developed in the 1980s between street and vert skaters. Leaphart summed it up like this. There's a dissing of each other.
Most guys do one or the other.
Although street skating is the dominant mode, vert skating is making a gradual comeback, especially in Europe, where state-sponsored skate parks in Denmark, Holland and Germany have helped the sport along. Last year, some 18,000 people attended the World Cup in Europe. From its inception, skateboarding has been associated with alternative culture and later the punk scene. Skate boarders are more ostracized than Harley gangs. I've been in Daytona where they've threatened to take me to jail for skating on the street.