Through the winter weather, the grimy neighborhoods and the rough streets, New York's skate scene still manages to unite itself and no event is bigger than Back to the Banks. Josh Brooks
The Brooklyn Bridge running team sprinted through the event with shirts commemorating Harold Hunter. "Nothing Gold Can Stay," they said, under a portrait of Harold.
The uneven bricks, the echo of rolling wheels in the imposing arches of the Brooklyn bridge, the filthy walls, the stink of urine—it's all characteristically New York. Judgments about which coast is better aside (I think they're both awesome in their own way), New York's scene is rough around the edges. In a city that contains the whole world, you get everything.
Luckily for NYC, 5Boro's Steve Rodriguez is there to bring everyone together. Rodriguez, with the help of 5Boro , Emerica , Spitfire , Volcom , Skateboarder Magazine , Red Bull , MetroPlus , World Industries , Bones and Tech Deck , drew crowds of people to the historic skate spot under the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge for the fourth annual Back to the Banks contest (considered the fifth, but Steve Rodriguez stressed that the first was not Back to the Banks, just a jam). The crowd was a beast, screaming, littering and coming and going all day. It stayed packed and all manner of human came out.
Josh Brooks
Former Shorty's homies, Muska and Sammy Baptista. It brings back good memories to see them together. By the way, Muska came on that basket bike and got mobbed. Still peoples' favorite after all these years.
5Boro's Willy Akers took best trick on the wallride with a frontside wallride 180, frontside wallride 270, backside wallride to bluntslide on the side of the wall and a wallride nollie 360. Flip's David Gonzalez took best trick on the spine ledge with an impossible 50-50 and a frontside blunt to fakie. Willy Akers also took the bank to ledge with a tailslide on the top and a noseblunt on the top ledge (that ledge is nearly impossible to get to unless you're nuking at it). Lastly, Floridian and mere 5Boro flow kid (not for long) Chris Blake won the rail with a switchstance front blunt. Out of the whole day, Collin Provost skated the whole place the best and won the MVP for the day.
The event was beyond amazing, in that dirty New York way and after the crowd shouted in unison to get schwag and the winners were announced, kids dispersed, spreading through the city streets like tentacles of stoke.
No comments:
Post a Comment