Photo by Stacie Joy
This evening outside the Star Team, the skate shop starting year No. 2 at 436 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.
It will be a shock to the system in terms of the park's Feng Shui, but skateboarders have adjusted to way worse changes.The fate of the ramps, rails and boxes can obviously be decided later in the summer, though it stands to reason the contractors are going to toss them once construction begins unless we opt to save and relocate them. (Not 12th & A because that shit won't last a day there.)A few people have asked, "Can we do anything?!" a la the Save Tompkins campaign from summer 2019, but this is not a fundamental restructuring of how the park is used by the public like it was when they wanted to cover it in soft Astro Turf. The pavement hasn't been redone in ~30 years, and petitioning the city to not fix a deteriorating sports field when the time has come is like petitioning them to not fix a pot hole.
I don't know what the shop will actually be like after it opens, but right now, I'm imagining a shop where the community will grow on its own. I want this store to be run like a real store. I want it to be proper. I want people to feel comfortable here. I'm looking forward to doing events and gatherings — not exactly "shows." The space is pretty small, so it's hard to think of bigger stuff to do, but it'd be sick to do drop events for homies and little gather-arounds every couple of weeks, like having other brands and clothing.
The green bench is in Tompkins Square Park right now.
If you're a skateboarder — or a former skateboarder, or at least somewhat skateboarding-adjacent — and live in New York City, that sentence cannot be read without an exclamation point. The green bench! That's because this particular 300-pound piece of steel street furniture has become one of the most storied objects to skate around and on, and its arrival on the East Coast adds a coda to a two-decade saga of discovery, theft, loss, reconstruction, and a particularly hard-won switch backside noseblunt slide across its 13-foot arc.
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View this post on InstagramThanks to the Tompkins community who made this happen and @nycparks for listening.
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For generations, Tompkins has been a safe haven for skateboarders and other marginalized activities. It serves as a melting pot for all walks of life and is an integral part of our identity as a neighborhood and community.
The city now plans to install AstroTurf there to prioritize permitted sports, which will destroy the way our community has utilized this park for decades. Please join me on Saturday, Sept. 7 at 1 p.m. in the NW corner of the Park to show the city what this park means to us!
“We don’t have anything against asphalt,” said Liam Kavanagh, the Parks Department’s first deputy commissioner. “There’s always going to be need for asphalt spaces in our system. But when you have a situation where you are balancing literally thousands of hours of permitted youth sports that don’t have a place to go, we have to prioritize youth sports.”
The Parks Department prioritizes the permitted sports, Mr. Kavanagh said, because of the amount of time groups like the Little League spend organizing and raising funds from the private sector for this “real New York City tradition.”
The skateboarders said they cannot skate on artificial turf. Sidewalks and streets are legal to skate on, they added, but not necessarily safe for themselves or pedestrians.
Tompkins Square Park, which reopened in 1992 after large-scale renovations, appeals to the skateboarders because of its lack of ramps and handrails. Rookies can feel intimidated in skate areas with obstacles, they said. The park’s flat surface enables all users to learn from one another.