Thomas Taylor was a lifelong skater and founder of Atlanta’s first-ever skater-owned skate shop in 1986. He opened the store in the Morningside neighborhood with his mother’s permission to use the money saved for his college fund.
Stratosphere eventually moved to the Little Five Points neighborhood in 2009, where it has been a staple of the small business community.
For many people though, it was also much more than that, as evidenced by the immense outpouring of love and respect that followed Taylor’s passing in February 2023.
A tribute page in skating’s premiere publication Thrasher magazine includes dozens of memories of Thomas Taylor following his sudden passing last year.
“I was a young kid without a dad, without direction, who found skateboarding. But everything changed when Thomas found me,” wrote Stormy Pruitt.
“Eat, sleep and skate, that’s how I was raised. Skating was always first, everything else comes second.”
Thomas Taylor’s son Grant, who went on to become a world-famous professional skater
“I met Thomas when I was a lost teen, after my brother Angel went into the military,” wrote Marlon Garcia.
Taylor built ramps at his home and the shop that were the only of their kind anywhere in the city, so skaters, many of them just kids, would come from all over to learn vert or transition skating.
Ben Killmarx grew up in Little Five Points and met Taylor when he started skating.
He said, “My mom needed something to do with me on the weekends, and all I wanted to do was skate, and since it wasn’t like it is with soccer practice, one day she just asked Thomas if she could leave me with him for a couple hours every Saturday morning.”
That was also true for Zane Coburn, whose mother owned the store next door to Stratosphere, and who met Thomas through his son Grant.
“I met Grant out skating on our street, we hit it off, Thomas brought me a skateboard the next day, and it’s been history since then,” said Coburn.
Taylor’s love for skating rubbed off on everyone around him, and none more so than his son Grant, who went on to become a world-famous professional skater sponsored by Nike and named Thrasher magazine’s 2011 Skater of the Year.
“Eat, sleep and skate, that’s how I was raised,” said Grant. “Skating was always first, everything else comes second.”
That was unquestionably true for Thomas as well, and he made it his life’s work.
In addition to running Stratosphere, Thomas was an expert at designing and constructing skateparks, and was called on to build many public and private parks all over the country.
In 1996, during the run-up to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the International Olympic Committee staged the training for the closing ceremony’s skate performance on Thomas’ homemade skate ramp.
However, Taylor also oversaw many unsanctioned projects, building do-it-yourself skate spots around Atlanta on abandoned lots and blighted properties.
He produced a documentary in 2015 called “Lost in Transition” that narrates the Southeast’s tradition of DIY skateparks and the people who helped create them.
One of the DIY spots that had grown popular among Atlanta skaters was known as “The Foundation,” and like most of them it was just a derelict plot of land that skaters began populating with objects to ride.
In 2011, the Trust for Public Land announced that it was planning to purchase the piece of property as part of the BeltLine project, and they reached out to Taylor to advise them on the inclusion of a skatepark.
That would eventually be created at the Historic Fourth Ward Park. In May, the skatepark was renamed the Thomas Taylor Memorial Skatepark in recognition of his efforts to build community and expand skating accessibility.
“I thought we were going to get in trouble or something for basically doing the concrete work on property that we didn’t own, and they said no there’s talk of a skateboard area being in this and if it’s going to be that way we want y’all to help design it,” recounts Thomas in a documentary made by Tony Hawk’s foundation, which also donated to the park getting built.
The park represents something of a culmination in Taylor’s work, and the City of Atlanta has since said it plans to continue that effort, with the city’s Parks and Recreation commissioner announcing plans to complete five additional skateparks within the city.
