How Skateboarders Still Haven’t Caught Up With Bicyclists After Decades in the City.

On Thursday, October 18, the City of New York won a temporary restraining order from the New York Supreme Court, blocking the “Broadway Bomb,” a skateboarding and long-boarding event planned for Saturday, October 20. The annual event, which first took place in 2000 with three attendees, was expected to gather over one thousand skaters to ride down Broadway, totalling eight miles from 116th Street to Bowling Green. Roughly thirty participants completed the race on Saturday despite the cancellation, but no arrests were made.

The recent cancellation of the race adds to a long list of complaints lodged against the city’s skateboarding community. While skateboarders have been a prominent part of New York City culture for decades, their community struggles to gain the same acknowledgement from fellow pedestrians and city officials that cyclists seem to be getting. This year alone, over twenty-six miles of bike lanes will be built all around the city, which skateboarders are legally obliged to use, but many still feel marginalized.

“I don’t think the city pays a lot of attention to us,” said Josh Kohn, a 21-year-old NYU student  who skateboards regularly. “It’s not like they look down on us or treat us a certain way, but they don’t really do a lot for us either. We would like to see more resources for skaters in the city.”

 

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While many skateboarders in New York City feel that their interests are ignored, conditions have improved since the inception of the sport.

Jacob Charney, 45, who lived in the city in the 1980s and 1990s, and enjoyed the newly opened Coleman Skate Park in the Lower East Side one recent day in Octobert, remarked that it is easier to be a skater in the city these days.

“They have a facility like this park to skate in, whereas when I was their age 20 years ago, we were skating on people’s buildings and over their sidewalks through industrial parks,” Charney said. “I think it’s grown in society, more than the opposite.”

Skateboarding originated in California in the 1950s and grew to be a staple of the state’s culture. Word soon traveled to New York City — where skaters, like Charney, used any materials available to them to practice their craft and spread the word about best skating spots by mouth. Years later, skateboarding entered the mainstream with half-pipe superstars like Tony Hawk and Bob Burnquist becoming household names. According to a study by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, the amount of skaters in the United States doubled from 1993 to 2000. Although no official statistics are available, in 2010, that statistic was estimated by Board-Trac, an action sports research company, at eight million.

“I remember back in the day when [New York City] was a lot grimier than it is today,” recalls 41-year-old lifelong East Village resident Ian Andrews, who still skates daily to his office in Midtown. “There were a lot of preconceptions, for sure. [Skateboarders] were considered hoodlums.”

Roughly 15 official skate parks exist in the five boroughs — four of which are in Manhattan. While the city has dedicated notable amounts of money and manpower to cycling projects, such as the upcoming bike-renting program Citibike, many skateboarders feel that they remain underdogs.

“It would be nice to see the city pull out the big tricks for [skaters] once in a while,” said Malik Newton, a barista who skates in the East Village daily. “[Cyclists] get all the fancy stuff. There are cycling lanes all over the place — why are there no skating lanes?”

Today, in popular spots like Union Square, Washington Square Park or Columbus Circle, enthusiasts of all ages gather to practice tricks or simply skate for the joy of it.

While these public spaces fill with  a flurry of activity most nights, skateboarding in public spaces is illegal. In the city, it is only legal to skate in the street or in bike lanes, but some skaters look for spots where they can show off their tricks.

“The skaters I see [in Washington Square Park] seem to either have a board to look cool or because they really have heart for it,” said high school student Trevan Telanar, 16. “Whether people skate legitimately or not, it’s all about spreading the love.”

Performing tricks is an art of its own, while some skaters use their boards solely for transportation and choose not to partake in the larger skate culture.

Longboards, which are 10-30 inches longer than traditional skateboards, gained popularity within the last decade. Longboards are considered ideal for “cruising” down a street, while skateboards are better suited for tricks.

Numerous websites offer maps and lists of the best skate spots in the each of the boroughs, often with detailed descriptions and reviews. Since some of the nicest spots aren’t necessarily legal, like the southern end of the Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island — which has had skaters salivating ever since construction plans of the park were announced in 2010 — there is often a mention of how likely police intervention is at a given spot.

 

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At times, it’s not the police who intervene with the skaters, but instead fellow New Yorkers. The Open Road Park, located on E. 12th St. and Ave. A, used to be a popular spot among skaters. However, noise complaints and allegations of drug use from neighbors caused the city to temporarily close the park in the summer of 2011, and then again during the following winter. Skaters fought against the action, attending community board meetings to voice their complaints. Although the board suggested designated skating hours to keep the peace between local residents and the skaters, for the past year the park has been open to non-skaters only.

“Skateboarding is not equal to bikes — bikes solve traffic, pollution problems,” said Susan Stetzer, District Manager  of Community Board 3. “Skateboarding is a fine sport — but must be located away from residences because of noise.”

Stetzer did, however, point out that despite the problems at Open Road, the city just rebuilt Coleman Skate Park on the Lower East Side and has another in the works for the East River Esplanade.

Some of those who opt for transportation other than a skateboard aren’t so sure. Cab driver Omar Pulido, who has been working in the city for over ten years, said skaters have become more careless and do not deserve the city’s aid.

“They hop out of nowhere and don’t watch where they’re going,” Pulido said. “[Cyclists] I don’t have a problem with, so I’m glad they have lanes. Skateboarding is for idiots.”

There are a surprisingly low number of accidents involving skateboards in New York City — according to Skateboarder for Public Skateparks, only two skaters died in the city in 2011 and both accidents involved automobiles. However, interviewees agreed that sometimes tension between skaters and fellow pedestrians is inevitable.

Telanar said that skateboarders are treated poorly in comparison to cyclists. “We get picked on more and seen as vandals, rather than doing something we love,” he said.

Skaters seem to agree that following the rules keeps problems with cyclists and pedestrians at bay. Lang junior Alex Ackerman has had mostly positive experiences while long-boarding, “Whenever I skate, I always get compliments from pedestrians. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl, but people are always like: ‘Hey! That’s cool, you go girl!’”

“It depends on the person, obviously,” said sales associate Nicholas Guerra, 31, who has been cycling almost daily since he moved to the city six years ago. “There are jerks on skateboards just like there are jerks on bikes. Personally I’ve never been in accident, but I know skaters who have [collided] with cyclists.”

Still, some skaterboarders wish that fellow New Yorkers were more welcoming to their community. “Skateboarding in New York is not as organized [as cycling],” said Terrence Brown, a NYU student who often skates in Union Square. “People always talk about cycling as a way to be green and as something more people should do, but no one brings up boarding. More people should look into what we do.”

With reporting by Roderic David, Natalie Moses & Andrea Vocos