When I was a teenager, instead of playing sports or studying or getting wasted after school, I got on a train, or into a friend’s car and came here.
My mom had no idea I was spending all my time at the Brooklyn Banks, a famous skateboard spot and cultural landmark in lower Manhattan.
The space is a park, of sorts, that lies in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. A depressing folly of city planning that was occupied only by the homeless until skateboarders made the discovery in the 1980’s. It quickly became a meeting spot for skaters, graffiti artists, photographers, filmmakers, musicians and whoever else happened to know about it.
On a good day at the banks you might see Larry Clark casting his film Kids, Ari Marcopolis shooting photos with a Polaroid Land camera, or Lady Miss Kier from Deee-Lite walking her poodle.
Pro skaters from all over the world came here to skate. Here’s a photo of Lance Mountain doing a road sign-to-boneless in 1985, when Stacy Peralta brought the Bones Brigade here to film the New York segment for the Future Primitive video. Photo by C.R. Stecyk
The wall, which is now unskatable, was a dangerous set-up where if you made the trick, you then had to worry about being hit by taxi cabs flying down the BQE offramp.
That didn’t stop anyone. Here’s Jeff Pang going over the wall on the cover of Thrasher from 1993.
The banks are set to close until 2014 for painting of the bridge and renovation of the park, so I went down to pay my respects.
Although local skaters have been fighting to make sure skateboarding has a place in the new park, many are doubtful.
One thing I know is that this place, that to a large degree made me, and more than a few times broke me, will never be the same. Always remember the banks!
Metroplitan Ad shot by Ari Marcopolis. Scans swiped from the Chrome Ball Incident and my personal stash.
Cool! I love the ruggedness of it. It’s too bad they are pretty much shutting it down. So sad.
THIS POST RULES, YOU DID THE RIGHT THING MAN… LIKE CLEARLY