We almost missed the plane on our way there. It was my roommate Reggie and I, and of course Reggie got randomly searched, and because he was wearing a thousand layers of clothes it took them forever to make sure he wasn’t lled with knives. Once we got on the plane we faced immediate hostility, knocking into passengers in the aisles with our skateboards, then not being able to t said skateboards under our seat, not to mention a pushy ight attendant and a large man having a panic attack in his seat. After retrieving our luggage we made our way to the train. It stopped and waited in the m iddle of New Jersey for about 45 minutes or so, then nally got us to the L train that we would take to Brooklyn to meet Andy. After navigating through the waves of zombies lling the subway terminals we made it to Brooklyn at 4am. Not before feeding a few lucky subway rats Werther’s originals.
One thing that was different about this trip was the lack of NYC touristy stops. No times square, no museums, no TRL.W e did make a trip out to Coney Island one day, but it was deserted as it was about 25 degrees and windy as fuck.The ride out there was probably the best part, lots of weird people, and Reggie fell asleep so that was kind of funny. I found myself becoming one of the many people constantly playing on my phone. It seems that in a place where public transit is prominent, avoiding human contact is also a must. If you didn’t have headphones in, you played on your phone, or at least read a book or something. I’m not one of those people to preach about reaching out to people in your path, but it did seem kind of strange to literally being surrounded by other humans, and at the same time to try and avoid them at all costs.
The Lower East Side park was right off the train from Andy’s house, about 15 minutes. It was sick being able to meet up with people there. It’s also one of the best parks I’ve ever skated.W ide open, random ledges and non-skateable-skateable stuff to skate, and it stayed dry. W e met here just about everyday, which for some reason never got tired. W e found a few homies from Chicago who we skated with almost everyday. Hitting the streets with about 10 people was always sick. From LES we would cruise to chinatown, hit a few spots along the way and then get dumplings.
Reggie and I did get a chance to go to some kind of Vans open house thing one night.Awesome considering it was about 15 degrees out.The place was packed, and there wasn’t much to skate, but the free pizza/beer/rap show made up for it.Also, skating in just a t shirt was an awesome change of pace. o I even got the balls Reggie thrived on that shit, he got about 5 tricks before to inevitably snake someone to try and ride from one end to the other. I destroyed about 8 peoples ankles with my board, but eventually skated a bit. Oh, I also missed all of the pizza and beer, drank about 12 sparkling waters and someone dropped in on my head. But it was pretty fun, and everyone was cool, surprisingly no attitudes.
It was soon after that a girl brought Reggie aside and asked him why he was there… “this is a gay bar,” she said. “You guys are straight.” W ithout hesitation Reggie replied “W e’re from Saint Louis, everyone’s gay.” “Oh… ok, well I’m straight too… ” Reggie just walked away.
ba where we met these two random girls from Germany It was at this same bar or something. Pretty hilarious situation, but they ended up hanging with us the next few days. I played the role of the third wheel, or whatever the saying is.Thanks to the amount of candy I seemed to constantly be carrying in my windbreaker and my little stupid malnourished child face they kept calling me chocolate boy.They were probably ok people, but it was funny to W e went out a few times while we were there, but one night in particular we go to New York to inevitably hang out with other tourists. which I guess ended up at a club/bar/socialsetting in Brookyln to see someone reading makes up 90% of the city. I remember the one was bored and just kept asking tarot cards or palms, or whatever.Anyway, I can liken it to a bar in The about drugs, we would just brush it off and like Reg would say, “naw, I only Grove or something. Pretty standard dancy/drinky place. It was here, at the do heroin.” She of course didn’t get the joke and started talking about how bar I can’t remember the name of, that Andy showed me the delicious demon she didn’t really like heroin and that her friend died of a “heroin overdose.” that is “gin and juice.” Suggested I’m sure as a joke. Every time I ordered But what we heard was “arian overdoes,” as in “he was too blonde and blue one the flamboyant bartenders gave me a dirty look, and they probably eyed to function.” W e all laughed and make jokes, but I guess that was kind of insensitive.They eventually left to continue their big expensive journey should have. he places I’ll probably never see, and to be honest, I was glad they W e hit the floor per usual and everything seemed to be going according to of other plan, we sweat, we smiled and we stuck about 50 Daddio Patio stickers on were gone. strangers.
Somehow we ended up skating this post near W ashington Square Park with about a crew of 15. The weather at this point was amazing. It got shitty and rained probably twenty minutes later.
Perhaps the number one greatest aspect of anything New York is the concept of the 24 hour bodega. No matter what time it is, I’m gonna spend my money on something I don’t even want.And you’re damn right I’m buying some more candy.And a banana, and a lime-arita, and a chicken wrap, and some deodorant because I forgot all my shit at home. A skate trip to New York in freezing weather doesn’t really seem like a super well thought out plan. But a free place to stay and the promise of friendship made it all come together. Shoutout to Andy Alton in his flesh colored outfit for giving us a room to o showing us around. sleep in and for