Supra Distribution warehouse manager and Vancouver-based skate photographer Louis Feller has the DIY spot building bug, which is an ailment one would wish to have. "For a lot of people who skate, it's a lot easier to just talk about it rather than to actually go build something," he says. "Or they just figure it's too much work for something that might get torn down."

Fact of the matter is, as of September 30th this centrally located East Van Ghetto Spot did get levelled unfortunately. But it had a solid run throughout the summer...

"We started building things at the spot in June, purely because we wanted something new to skate," Louis explains. "When you're out trying to skate and shoot photos in Vancouver, it's hard not to end up at any spot worth skating that's already been completely destroyed by sick skaters. Really, it was just about having a place to skate and contributing to the scene out here."

Read on as Louis explains the ins and outs of carrying on a worldwide tradition by adding another Ghetto Spot to the fold.

What were the ideal elements of this location?
Well, it wasn't the most ideal ground or anything, but it just seemed like a good place for a Ghetto Spot. It's also about 4 blocks from my house in East Van, which is the most important thing [laughs], and it was hassle-free to skate there anytime from dawn to dusk.

Which obstacle came first?
I built the ledge with Adam Hopkins, Cory Gannon, and Mike Graveline. We didn't want to skate downtown or go to a park, so one day we just cruised to the Ghetto Spot with 7 cinder blocks I had on my back porch.

Aside from the cinder blocks, what other materials were used to make the ledge?
We plastered it together, with 3 bags of quick-setting cement from Home Depot, 8 gallons of water, 2 pieces of angle iron and 4 cans of Bondo to seal the top. It ended up costing us probably around 120 bucks. That same day we spontaneously built a booter right next to it with the leftover supplies. Seemed like the right thing to do.

Wasn't the ledge painted in the spirit of the Canucks' playoff run?
Yeah, we painted the ledge Canucks colours with hopes that it would be a good luck charm. It was such a coincidence that they also ended up painting the Plaza rail Canucks colours when they renovated the park. But when the team ended up losing in Game 7, someone instantly went and plastered the ledge with white house paint. I don't even think it was a skater that did it...

What was the next project for the spot?
The ledge was a test of time to see how long it would last. It stuck around for 2 months so, then myself, Mikey LeBlanc (who built the Lakai Flare ledge for Go Skate Day in Vancouver) and Matt Ballantyne from the Supra Dist. warehouse decided to build a quarter. We all pitched on it, like 60 bucks each to start.

You mentioned not really knowing what you were getting yourselves into...
We thought it would only take 10 bags of cement to build a 2-foot high by 8-foot wide quarter. The first 2-foot section of the quarter took 7 bags! We had to build it in 3 sections, and in the end it took 20 bags of cement, 40 gallons of water and 4 cans of Bondo. We built it against a barrier that's at the spot, otherwise it would've taken way more cement to finish it.

What did you guys use for fill? I know empty beer and spray paint cans were utilized as fill at Leeside...
Oh, man. We didn't have a wheelbarrow, so we had to use a shopping cart. We rolled it all around the block and filled it up with rocks about 10 times, totally looking homeless [laughs]. We had any container we could find filled with water. It took about 5 days to finish the quarter.

Sounds pretty rugged DIY. How did you guys mix the cement without a wheelbarrow?
A lot of hand and shovel mixing on the ground, and mixing Bondo on a piece of wood that I found [laughs]. It was definitely pretty amateur hour. I think for all of us it was our first time trying to build something like that out of cement.

(keep reading for the low-down on who has sessioned the spot and how it got named)