Tony Hawk's Pro Skater: The Real Skate Spots

The NY City level of Pro Skater 2 is built from the Brooklyn Banks and Central Park. Taxis with unpleasant drivers circulate, and an elevated subway train runs overhead. The real banks sit under the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge, where unique brick banked surfaces give the spot its name. Skaters used them from the mid-1980s onward, significantly before any skateparks were built in the city. In 2010 the space became storage for a bridge repair project, which shut the area skaters had used, closing the area skaters had used for over twenty years.

Venice Beach in Pro Skater 2 is inspired by a spot called The Pit. The level makes it easy to reach the roofs, offers many ramp-to-ramp transfers and hides a secret area. Venice has hosted well-known skate spots throughout the history of the sport, and from the 2000s a group of locals led by Jesse Martinez organized an effort to build the Venice Beach Skatepark. The pin marks Venice, not The Pit itself.

Location precision: The game only says The Pit is a spot in Venice Beach; the exact location is not given, so the pin marks the neighbourhood.

Philadelphia is a mostly flat level that favours sliding, and it recreates Love Park; one secret zone recreates FDR Skatepark. The real plaza became one of the most famous and recognizable skateboarding spots in the world in the 1990s and 2000s, despite a ban first passed in 1984. In October 2002 Edmund Bacon skated across it at age 92 in protest. From 2016 to 2018 a reconstruction turned the plaza into a greener space.

Visitor guidance: A public plaza in Philadelphia, rebuilt in 2016–2018 as a greener space with lawns and gardens.

The Bullring is a competition level: an arena with a big half-pipe and a full-pipe, and a bull that gallops through the corridors, so you must dodge it. The level reproduces the arena and elements used in Birdhouse's skate video The End, which is set in Tijuana, Mexico.

Location precision: The source says the arena is in Tijuana but does not name it; the pin marks the city.

In 2002 Kona Skatepark became a location in Pro Skater 4. The real park is in the Arlington area of Jacksonville, Florida. It was opened by Martin and Helen Ramos with a number of investors on 4 June 1977, and it is the oldest surviving commercial skatepark in the world.

Visitor guidance: A skatepark in Jacksonville's Arlington area; check its current hours and fees before going.

Alcatraz is a playable level in Pro Skater 4. The island lies about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco and was converted into a federal prison, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, in 1934. Today its facilities are managed by the National Park Service, and it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Visitor guidance: Ferries run from Pier 33 in San Francisco.