1Y29
ticular skate crew was well known for their
ability to strip down a 175-foot long wall bar-
rier that was made of perfect 8'x4' plywood
within a matter of 1½ hours in total darkness
and silence. Their terrain consisted of very
wide, tall ramps. This enabled them to
develop an extremely smooth style.
Finally, there were the Riverdale Boys-a
group of young rich kids who lived in a nice
part of the south Bronx. These kids had the
best of two worlds. They had long, steep hills
and endless pools. The neighborhood was
infested with them, all shapes and lengths.
The one that sticks out in my mind was 16
feet deep, about 90 feet wide and known as
the Monster Pool. It wasn't uncommon for
these boys to skate seven pools in a day.
Occasionally pool owners would come
home prematurely to find skate rats shred-
ding their pool and instead of screaming and
kicking us out, they would pull out a chair,
sit down and observe how we defied gravity.
Conversely, there was also a time when
about twelve of us were skating a backyard
pool and this gnarly looking superintendent
came toward us with a machete. As we
scrambled to escape he ran right past several
of us with the sole aim of hacking apart
Wesley Bocxe. It seemed as though he knew
Wesley was our guide, so to destroy him
would be to destroy us.
These groups maintained their separate
ways until word got out that there was a
skateboard park in Long Island. It didn't
appeal to too many skaters at first, since L.I.
was two hours away by train, but it was well
worth the trip for three reasons: 1. It provided
us with new territory to conquer particularly
since none of us had ever skated areal skate-
Clockwise from For Left: Harold Hunter catches a
cab-literally. Big lipslide by Barker Barret. Chris
Pules rules the rail at the Brooklyn Bridge, Obed
Rios rips one over the bricks. Wiley gets styles on
a vegetation vessel. More brick sickness-a
speedy, sliding Harry Jumonji.
board park before. 2. We were sure to meet
people we had never skated with, and learn
new ideas and maneuvers. 3. This is the most
important reason, even though we didn't
know it at the time-it brought the four
previously mentioned groups of skate-
boarders together as a unit. At least 27
skaters would all meet to catch the early
morning train to Northport Skatepark, and
we quickly learned to put aside differences
by sharing with each other where we were