Photographer Danny Weiss and writer Theodore Barrow team up for a photo essay in The New York Times today on the teen skateboarders who hang out on the baseball fields (the T.F.) in Tompkins Square Park.
An excerpt:
A lot has changed over 15 years. Skateboarding, like the neighborhood, has grown up and acquired a marketable sheen. It is difficult not to see in these kids, who now dress like the ones in the movie “Kids,” my contemporaries in the mid-’90s.
Who knows how long the park will be a haven for them, or what they will become? Small, seemingly insubstantial butterfly-wing youthful decisions can have life-changing consequences. Who knows how long skaters will be allowed to hang out at the T.F., considering the skyrocketing property values of real estate in the East Village?
Find the photos and essay here.
2 comments:
More of the skaters used to skate in the courtyard of Eastside Community School between 11th and 12th and had a bunch of ramps there but the Department of Education closed it down suddenly around ?? 3 or 4 years ago. Like the exercise area on Avenue B the cement field on Avenue A is used by a broad swath of the community. Besides skaters the field hockey legions take it over some weekends, there are organized baseball games, dog owners unofficially let their dogs run off a leash and there are still a few basketball hoops. The boys school has recess there with soccer, basketball, kickball and track et cetera.
Given the current era I can certainly see more organized corporate branded events but there were corporate events there in the 90s as well so I don't see any change coming. It's not like a developer can leave a suitcase full of unmarked bills outside Gracie Mansion and get a permit to build there because it's under the Parks Department. That would have to go through Albany and Cuomo is too expensive.
wonderful photos, lovely text. bravos all around.
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