Showing posts with label skateboarding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skateboarding. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 14, 2026
RIP Hell Ride, now in skateboard heaven
Sunday, July 12, 2026
At Jenkem Magazine's skate block party in Tompkins Square Park
Photos by Stacie Joy
Skateboarding and culture magazine Jenkem took over the Tompkins Square Park multipurpose courts yesterday afternoon with a pop-up skate jam/block party featuring new obstacles, music and plenty of spectators.
The free event drew a steady crowd of skaters and onlookers ... some there to land tricks, others simply to hang out on a summer afternoon.
Here are a few scenes from the session...
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Wednesday's parting shot
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.
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Last summer for the current configuration of the multipurpose courts in Tompkins Square Park
It appears the city will start the pavement reconstruction of the multipurpose courts in September after all.
We first reported on this date back in February... though, during a CB3 committee meeting this spring, a Parks official said the work would start here along Avenue A and 10th Street after the Dance Parade in May.
However, the Parks Department website still lists September... Quartersnacks yesterday also noted the September start date.
We covered the city's presentation to Community Board 3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee back in September. Find that recap, which includes schematics, here.
The Parks Department will reconstruct the multipurpose courts, adding various amenities, including a two-lane seal-coated walking loop, and new asphalt.
According to Max Goodstein, a landscape architect with the Parks Department, there's a lot of "asphalt structural damage," and it "needs to be replaced and repaired. And the only way to do that is to take all the asphalt down to the sub base and put new asphalt down."
Other additions: new benches, a kickball court, a high-low fountain that kids and adults can use simultaneously, and three new basketball backstops at the eastern end, replacing the ones that always seem to be damaged.
And subtractions: the space used for dugouts during softball games are being removed for bench seating. Officials say the space won't be used for softball again.
And the impact on skating here?
Some thoughts via Quartersnacks ...
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.
The last resurfacing here is estimated between 1992 and 1995.
Work is expected to last a minimum of three months.
Meanwhile, reconstruction of the Tompkins Square Park field house began in May ... for the anticipated 18-month project.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Friday, June 2, 2023
Openings: Star Team on 9th Street
Image via @kyotaumeki
East Village native (and current resident) Kyota Umeki, a skateboarder and designer, debuted his skate shop, Star Team, Wednesday at 436 E. Ninth St. between Avenue A and First Avenue.
He created the Star Team brand a few years back, and the shop features his clothing, boards and other accessories (check out his headphones).
Quartersnacks posted a Q&A with him on Wednesday, where, among other topics, he talks about the vision he has for the storefront:
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.
And how it started with the ribbon cutting ...
For now, Star Team will be open Monday-Friday from noon to 7 p.m. and weekends from 1-5 p.m.
H/T William Klayer
Monday, September 19, 2022
Big changes are coming to the iconic skate spot in Tompkins Square Park
Next year, the Parks Department will reconstruct the multipurpose courts in Tompkins Square Park along Avenue A and 10th Street, adding various amenities, including a two-lane seal-coated walking loop, and new asphalt.
City officials unveiled the plans during Community Board 3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront, & Resiliency Committee virtual meeting this past Thursday (as we first reported here).
Max Goodstein, a landscape architect with the Parks Department, provided a brief overview.
The space, he said, has a lot of "asphalt structural damage," and it "needs to be replaced and repaired. And the only way to do that is to take all the asphalt down to the sub base and put new asphalt down."
Other additions: new benches, a kickball court, a high-low fountain that kids and adults can use simultaneously, and three new basketball backstops at the eastern end, replacing the ones that always seem to be damaged.
"The start date hasn't been finalized yet," he said. "It's going to take three months, and we should definitely be done by next fall."
The presentation was more of an informational session, and no vote was required by the CB3 committee. The reconstruction is moving forward.
So what does this mean for the skaters on the lot (aka TF), hallowed ground where generations have used this space dating to the 1980s? (It has been called "the last great meet-up spot for skateboarders and their friends in New York.")
One resident commented during the meeting: "I'm really concerned that the young people in this neighborhood are being pushed out of this famous, much-loved, much-used skating space. You even opened it with pictures of skaters. What are you going to do about this?"
Goodstein said that he skated here in his youth and has had conversations with the skaters about the pending changes.
Another Parks rep, Steve Simon, chief of staff to the Manhattan Borough Commissioner, chimed in at this point.
"Max and I went there, and we personally spoke to a group of them, and they were very much in support of what we intended to do," he said. "They want to have an improved surface. And what we're doing here is by no means going to displace them. [The skaters said that] they appreciate what we're doing. And the only thing they really wanted from us ... a fountain and a slightly different variation on the layout of the benches. So we're gonna accommodate them. They were pretty thrilled with what we're planning to do and with the fact that we went out there and just spoke to them."
It's unclear just how thrilled the skaters will be with the final product next fall — after the space will likely be under construction for the prime summer months. It's also unclear what might happen with the various ramps and rails the skaters use. 
As you may recall, in September 2019, the skateboarding community came together via a petition started by Adam Zhu and signed by 33,000-plus people to show their support for keeping the multipurpose courts free of synthetic turf... plans apparently only known to residents who attended a Community Board 3 committee meeting in May 2019. Adding artificial turf would have rendered the space useless for skateboarders and street hockey players, among other groups.
However, less than 24 hours before a much-publicized rally was to take place, the city announced that it would no longer cover the space in turf, originally proposed to make up for the amenities lost during the years-long gutting of East River Park.
"Tompkins Square Park has served as the epicenter of NYC skateboard culture for decades. As such, we have decided to leave the area previously proposed for synthetic in the park as is and will not move forward with creating a synthetic turf area there," Parks Department spokesperson Crystal Howard said in a statement to Patch at the time.
And the reconstructed layout of the space may make this the end of the epicenter of NYC skateboard culture.
Previously on EV Grieve:
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
FA debuts on 9th Street; the green bench arrives in Tompkins Square Park
The skateboard company and streetwear brand, co-owned by pro skaters Jason Dill and AVE (aka Anthony Van Engelen), opened its first retail space in Los Angeles in 2019. This is the first East Coast outpost for FA.
The shop's grand opening also saw the arrival of the green bench, a very special guest brought here by the owners of FA and currently a block away in the skating (TF) area of Tompkins Square Park.
Here's more about it via Curbed, who first reported about it coming here:
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.
No. 420 was previously Puppy Love & Kitty Kat, the 10-year-old pet supplies and grooming shop that closed in 2019.
Storefront photo by Steven. Thanks to William Klayer for sharing pics as well.
Monday, February 8, 2021
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Scenes from Save Tompkins Day
Photos by Stacie Joy
Monday was a day of celebration on the ballfields/TF at Tompkins Square Park... a day that marked the one-year anniversary of the city's decision not to put artificial turf on the northwest corner of Tompkins... sacred ground for generations of skateboarders.
The skate community marked the day by bringing in a variety of vendors for a flea market of sorts in which all the money was being donated to at-risk local businesses and BLM-related causes. (Organizer Adam Zhu, an East Village resident, reported in an Instagram post that more than $10,000 was raised on Monday.)
EVG contributor Stacie Joy shared these portraits from the afternoon in Tompkins...
...and on the TF...
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