Sunday morning I gathered my things to depart to Connecticut. One of Jess's cousins passed away the past week. Owen and I went with her to the viewing. Her mom treated us out to some nice Portuguese restaurant later in the day. The original plan was for me to leave Monday, taking the Grey Hound bus down to NYC, meet up with some guys in Jersey spend the night, then maybe do some more skating tuesday, coming back to Word of Life by 8pm. Sunday night we left Connecticut to go to NYC. Jess knew of this church, that told her she could come and stay the night there whenever she wanted. In the process of driving around he kinda got lost, not really knowing where we were, we eventually got a map, making it to the church.
The Church has a baptismal, that is known as the Garden of Eden, where many WOLBI students have taken showers from different ministries done in NYC. We arrived around 1am, not getting to sleep until 2am. Then I woke up at 6 am, to be out of the church by 7 am, because the Pastor had to leave, so he kicked us out. With only 4 hours of sleep (not very good sleep, it was a very hard floor), I hit the streets on my skateboard at 7 am, while Owen and Jess headed back to upstate NY.
I skated to across the Brooklyn Bridge to where most of the skateboarding happens in NYC. I had plenty of time before I needed to be at the L.E.S. skatepark (events started at 2pm). I checked out a few skate spots that you I have seen in videos/magazines on the way.
To the Left: China Town Banks
I'm not sure what this spot is called, but if you skate you have probably seen this high bench being skated with the Brooklyn Bridge in the back ground.
The city has been planning to close the Brooklyn Banks because of construction on the bridge. They actually aren't even doing construction on the part of the bridge that the Brooklyn Banks is located, they are using this area to store their equipment. I skated over there to check out what was going on with that. In fact they are closing it for 4 years, however the Banks was still open for a little bit of skateboarding, but will probably be closed within the week.
They cut out the grind rails, took out the benches, put orange liner around trees, and were working on building a tall fence to keep people and skateboarders out of the area. I enjoyed doing a kickflip and fs flip on the banks one last time.
I arrived to L.E.S. at 8 am there was probably about 10 other skaters there. I ended making good friends with about 5 guys that where there early in the morning with me. Thankfully this helped me to have someone to help keep an eye on my camera the whole time, whenever I was skating, it also gave me some photos of myself skating. We skated there until about 11:00, to leave to get something to eat and drink. We skated over to the China Town Mani Pads, meeting about 10 other skaters already skating there.
Photo by: Freddie Me - Tailslide around kinked ledge
I was trying to get a fs 270 out but I just couldn't pull it off after going through the kink in the ledge. I got the tailslide first try, I actually don't know if I landed this sequence or not.
Photo by: Freddie Jesus - Kickflip off ledge
After skating China Town for an hour or so, we headed back to L.E.S. at about 12-12:30. Not to many kids where there yet, but the park began to get crammed with kids when it was getting really close to 2pm.
Freddie - bs boardslide (he came close but didn't land it)
Photo by: Freddie Me - nose manual - shove-it out
I'm in the blue just missing the prize...
Steve (the owner of 5boro skateboards) hosted most of the event, along with sponsors like CCS, Redbull, etc. I believe the best trick on the pyramid got $100. The picture to the left is a kickflip attempt that I didn't land. I only got about 4 runs compared to the 30 some other skaters got. Most skaters were really cool about the comp. but there is always a few that aren't there to skateboard, they are their to show people that they are talented. These guys are only people who skateboard, they aren't skateboarders. Their are many professionals who are great at skateboarding, but they are not skateboarders. I hope that makes sense.
During the events at L.E.S., Amp energy drinks, Redbull, Cocoanut Milk, and even burritos where given away for free.
Photo by Freddie - Johnny - Ollie
Not sure who - bs flip
Me - fs 270 to bs tailslide attempt - every time I went there was another person also going.
Eventually I was getting annoyed with the contest for the reason that I talked about above. I resumed to watching the show and taking pictures. While I was watching a noticed someone who came up next to me to watch. I looked over and noticed that it was Chad Muska! I have always wanted to meet this guy since I started skateboarding, he has been an idol in my early skateboard career. I remember once watching a tv series called "Sk8", the main skater in the show got to meet Chad Muska and skate with him. Ever since then it has been a huge desire of mine. (if anyone can find this tv series please let me know, I have been searching all over youtube and other places).
To help you who don't skateboard understand, if I had the choice to meet Tony Hawk or Chad Muska I would choose Chad Muska every time. Once I noticed him standing there, I didn't really know what to do. I turned to him and said "Hey, what's up?" Muska then replied "What's up?" Then standing there for a few more moments thinking in my head, I can't believe that is Chad Muska. I then asked him if I could have a photo with him. Chad Muska is exactly like a pictured him being, he was one of the coolest pros I have ever met. He was super chill with all the kids asking him for autographs and all there questions.
After the contest, there was a huge product give away. They threw out tons of t-shirts for all the kids to have Go Skateboarding Day 2010 t-shirts provided by Kr3w and CCS. Then we hit the streets!!!
There was thousands of kids skating down the streets of NYC, they traffic had to come to a stop while we skated blocking the road with our bodies.
Thats me in the middle (blue shirt) popping on ollie
In the purple shirt is the Lizard King, I didn't realize it was him until later in the day.
Many Graffiti artist went through the bridge before we got there, and freshly painted parts of the walkway.
First injury of the day. I ran into a kid while skating down the bridge, I was trying to pass him as he kicked back, and hit my board. I dove trying to hold my camera up in the air, preventing it's destruction. Lizard King gapped the double 3 set into a fire cracker on the second 3 stair. It only took him two tries. It was a huge gap! He was going so fast, once he landed he rode off down the street, no one really knew where he went. Then we hit the streets again.
New Friend Johnny in the back right pointing at me
The last spot we went to KCDC skate shop. Everyone was kinda just hanging out on the streets, skating or sitting around. It was a very beautiful sunny day. It was getting super hot. I was starting to really really want something to drink. I skated down the street to look for some place to buy some water, but the skate shop was located in like a warehouse kinda area, with not really any stores. I didn't know how far I would have to skate to find anything, so I returned to the street of KCDC. On my way back I noticed some kids skating this big round orange traffic barrels.
I started to skate the barrels with them. Then Steve (from 5boro) came over and made the gap a little bigger. He then decided to put up $100 for whoever clears the biggest gap. Kids laid their skateboards down side by side. As we tried to ollie them we keep on making the gap bigger and bigger, having less and less kids able to clear the gap. eventually the gap got up to 19 skateboards. Only 4 other guys, rather then myself was able to make the gap. The gap got up to 21 skateboards long. That is about 8" a board, so if I do a little math the gap was roughly 14' long with no ramp, hill, or car to get speed. Steve said he would give us $10 a board if we cleared the gap, that is $210 in the purse. Then we gathered money from the crowd moving the purse up to $310 and an ipod shuffle.
Starting at almost the completely other end of the street, I would run as fast as I could hop on my board, then push the whole way there. If felt like I was running a race, as I got close to the boards there was like 20 feet of people cheering you on before you got to the point where you ollie the boards, and then a continued line of people on the other side. We would get going so fast, we were getting speed wobble on our skateboards, one time I fell do to speed wobble right before I ollied to clear the gap. Another time I fell rolling near the crowd, hitting my head on somebody's skateboard truck. I have a little lump on my head, there was no blood, so it wasn't to bad. When I did make it across the gap, I would run into the crowd standing at the other end watching.
Eventually Steve noticed that someone stole his board and then the police started coming out, and kicking skaters off the street. It was a great day, but some kids make the great, positive day, into a reck that can make skateboarding look bad to everyone. A day created for a positive influence for skateboarding on the community, is easily destroyed by kids thinking they can do anything they want, because it is Go Skateboarding Day. I got sick of everything going on, I turned to the other skaters, skating the contest and asked them if they would just like to end the contest at this point, splitting the money between all of us. We split the money, each of us getting $60. (Photo to the left is of the 5 winners). After most of the skateboarders cleared the streets, I stuck around and helped a few other guys clean up the streets from stickers, fliers, and other trash left from skateboarders. The shop was closed to everyone, however they still let me go into the shop and hang out with everyone in there.
Here is some videos form Go Skateboarding Day that I am in. (I am wearing a bright blue shirt)
ESPN
I had a crazy time trying to figure out where I was going to stay for the night. I ended up finding someone from 5boro who had Steve's number from SFNJ (skateboard ministry I helped out at in Jersey). So I eventually got a hold of Steve. He gave me the phone number to another skater that I have never met before. However the guy was cool with me spending the night at his home in Jersey. So he told me to take the bus to either Wayne or Lincoln. To make a long story short. I rode the subway for the first time all by myself, in the middle of the night. ended up getting to Wayne not really knowing if my ride was going to be there or not, almost having to sleep on the streets. It all ended up working out. The next day trying to get home with Grey Hound, the station I went to only took cash (it cost $51). Luckily I won the contest or I wouldn't have had $51 cash on me.
Then arriving back at Glens Falls, Kenny was supposed to pick me up but I skated all the way to his house from the bus station. So lets look at some Dale skateboarding facts:
Total hours skateboarding:
12 hours for Go Skateboarding Day with very limited breaks (7am-8ish)
2 hours the next day in Glens Falls
Total Distance skateboarded:
My google maps isn't working, but the distance traveled was pretty far.
Skate Footage I filmed
I had my first weekly day off from camp. I spent the whole day sleeping, reading, and just all around relaxing...jk. I went skateboarding and completely wore myself out. Kurtis (my brother) dropped me off at Kenny Hopkins house in Glens Falls. We skated around looking for some spots. We found part of a metal roof ready to go out to the junk yard, but in a skaters eyes it is a beautiful piece of art.
