It’s no secret that D.C. is a much different place than it was in the ’80s. Hell, it’s a much different place than it was just five years ago. We’ve seen countless documentaries and footage about D.C. in the ’80s—from the birth of the punk and go-go scenes, to the crime-riddled streets that many local politicians worked hard to clean up—but a video recently sent to us by a reader depicts a more innocent subculture: D.C.’s skateboarding scene in the ’80s.

These days, there’s a number of skate parks in the District—in Shaw, by RFK Stadium, and at Garfield Park—but in the ’80s, most of the skaters in this video shredded through alleys, on the streets, and at a “secret ramp” in the woods off MacArthur Boulevard.

Videographer Ethan Minsker says that all the footage was filmed with a betamax camcorder around 1987-1988 (and you can tell, with the clothes, lingo, and Dischord bands playing on a boombox in the background).

“There is no real story here,” Minsker says, “but it documents a moment in my life … I was between the ages of 15 to 17 and had just started getting into punk rock.”

DC Skate 88 from Ethan H. Minsker on Vimeo.