Results tagged “skateboarding”

The city has made up its mind. Come December, the Brooklyn Banks will be boarded up and transformed into a construction area for the Brooklyn Bridge rehabilitation project, Scott Gastel, spokesperson for the city Dept. of Transportation told Downtown Express.

The Downtown Express reports that an area under the Brooklyn Bridge that's a popular skatepark called Brooklyn Banks (video) will probably be closing: "The city plans to use the internationally known Brooklyn Banks skate park as a staging area during the Brooklyn Bridge reconstruction, which is starting later this year and will last until 2014," according to the Parks Department. And the Department of Transportation "said the city would definitely need the space" at some point.

One of NYC's skateboarding legends, Andy Kessler, died yesterday in Montauk at the age of 49. Initial reports are stating that the cause of death was an allergic reaction to a hornet sting. In 2005, New York magazine profiled the skater and the Zoo York tribe he was a part of, just as the West Coast skaters were getting all the attention on the big screen.

East River Park, which hosted some gnarly snowboarders last week, was to become a winter wonderland for locals, with the excess snow creating hills primed for winter sports. Since that all melted thanks to the unseasonably warm weather, the Parks Department has just announced that from February 16th to 22nd (noon to 6 p.m.) there will be a "Vacation Skate Station" in its place. Leave your ice skates at home though, this is for skateboarding only. The week will include skateboarding programs for all levels, professional demonstrations, free skateboard rentals, ramps, raffles and giveaways, all as the East Side High School's DJ provide the tunes. Update: The Parks Dept. has now canceled the event—apparently Red Bull, who is organizing it, feels the weather will be bad this weekend.

REMINDER: Tickets are still on sale for this Saturday's music tribute to Arthur Russell at The Kitchen. You can purchase them here.

Coan Nichols (aka "Buddy") and Rick Charnoski have been making movies together on 8mm film since the late 90s; their main focus being skateboarding. At some point they abandoned their New York City stomping grounds for the warmer weather of the West Coast, but the city is still the inspiration for their latest release. Deathbowl to Downtown chronicles the origin of skating in NYC and is "the first to explore skateboarding’s urban history in-depth." (View trailer here.)

Deathbowl to Downtown – The Evolution of Skateboarding in New York City will be seeping into theaters starting this summer (with a national release this fall); the film is the first to explore skateboarding’s urban history in Manhattan. Tracing "skating's epochal shift from the parks and pools of the 70's, to ramp skating in the 80's, to the street ascendancy of the 1990's as seen from a New York-centric perspective," it includes footage and interviews with pioneers from the past and those still grinding today.

Yesterday, as many respectfully cheered on the marathon participants, a skateboarder ran directly into a wheelchair racer in Park Slope. Was it intentional? Witnesses say it was. From this Flickr thread:He came riding in from the side and didn't even try to stop himself. As soon as he stood up, he was smirking and after the NYPD yelled at him, when he retrieved his skateboard and walked up the block towards where I was standing,...