A year before the X-Games came to town, there was the release of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 which was recently re-released on the newest gaming platforms.
If you played that game back in , then you're likely well aware of the city's status as a skateboarding Mecca. Over the years, the landscape of the city's skateparks have changed, with new parks being built, renovated or moved entirely as the city itself has undergone major changes, including gentrification. But there's no shortage of skaters or destinations. If you spend more than a few minutes in Center City — or anywhere else around the area — you're bound to see a skateboarder, perhaps making his or her way to the nearest park or just out for a leisurely cruise to the local corner store.
It's widely considered not just one of the best skateboarding cities on the East Coast or in the United States, but in the entire world. That's why Philly is the latest city to be featured on Red Bull's "Greetings From" series, which was produced by local filmmaker Colin Kerrigan, who spent the last five months producing and, as a skateboarder himself, filming the project. The minute mini-documentary on Philly's skate scene was released on Red Bull's site earlier this week and is now available on YouTube.
FDR is like its own little world. They're just their own ecosystems. You could go down across the street from City Hall right now and there's going to be skateboarders there. They have this whole routine during the weekdays that they can only go there after five o'clock or the cops will kick them out.
They can try before five and they might get away with it. Next time you're driving in the city, take a loop around [City Hall] and you'll see a ton [of people]. It's like a public skate park, but it's city property. Those guys, that's where they hang out and that's their life I wanted to show that [in the doc]. So those two places, FDR and Muni, they deserve their own documentaries in my opinion.
It had trash cans that could be placed in front of drops to create gaps, and the floor could be pulled up in a couple spots to create bump ramps. It had multiple sets of stairs of varying sizes, scattered along edges and elevation changes, and it was across the street from City Hall, which was its own great skate spot with a great series of benches and railed stairs.
Love also had the fountain gap. It was beautiful and narrative. Their curve matched the fish-eye lenses. It felt like Love had been built for this purpose. A few weeks after I first skated there, I went back. And kept going back. I saw Love in full swing on better weather days, packed with pros and locals and out of town visitors. These names most likely mean nothing to you, but it's like driving to Chicago in and playing basketball with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen on their home court.
But I never thought of it in athletic metaphors. For me it was more like getting to watch a possibly stoned Michelangelo fuck around in his studio. And then you and Michelangelo would eat pretzels from a street vendor together.
I was not a Philadelphia local, I am not here to write about what Love meant to Philly and Philly skaters. Here are some great examples of Philadelphia natives doing that. To the tourists. To us, Love was a beacon. It was everything we wished we could have. It showed us that glorious structures could be built and repurposed for mind blowing artistic and athletic acts its designers had never intended.
It was filled with love and high fives and kindness. I felt accepted there, even as an outsider. I saw skaters from China and Mexico and Brazil and France all welcomed the same. Yet, every day, every time, the cops came, and we had to run. Skaters are used to getting kicked out of spots and cited by cops, but Love and Philly were another level. It was unrelenting and bizarre.
My friend Alexis Sablone, one of the best female professional skateboarders on the planet, was also chased out by undercover cops when she was In , a Cornell undergraduate architecture student named Edmund Bacon designed a whole new vision for downtown Philadelphia as his senior thesis, including a park right at its center.
Eventually, in the early s, he and his former Cornell classmate Vincent Kling planned and designed what would come to be Love Park to cover up an underground parking garage. The park opened in For a long time, the park was just a park.
By the '80s, save for an inconsistent lunchtime crowd, the square was relatively run down. Drug dealers moved in and out of its edges. In this emptiness, the skaters started showing up. And with them, came their wax for the ledges, and their trucks grinding down granite. Throughout the '90s, skaters would get periodically kicked out of Love or ticketed, usually at the behest of an annoyed City Hall employee across the street.
Not content with the normal tickets, Philadelphia first specifically banned skateboarding in Love Park in And then again in He declined.
They railed against their cherished city in letters to the editor and op-eds. On Oct. Bacon was 92 years old. Bacon, in total defiance of Mayor Street and the council of the city of Philadelphia hereby exercise my rights as a citizen of the United States and I deliberately skate in my beloved Love Park.
He was a genius. When it reopened, Love was, as promised, mostly guarded 24 hours a day. It remained this way for 14 years, at the cost of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, surely more than would have been required to simply keep the ledges looking fresh. The teenage version of me mourned. But despite the fact that so much that was skateable had been taken in the renovation, and despite the guards, skaters still would sneak in and skate the park. Year after year, kept going back.
And still would have to run. The fourth time I skated Love Park, in its original form, was on Sept. After the service ended, I snuck out of the reception, grabbed my board from my hotel, and pushed to Love. I was shocked to find dozens of skaters there.
There was a sense of something else. Of communal worship or meditation. Of mourning and processing. I remember watching people skate and thinking that no part of it was callous.
The handshakes and hugs had a heft and a tenderness. West Chester, PA info fairmans. Its store features a full line of boards, clothes, gear and Andrew Cannon-endorsed merchandise.
Darren Hunter is an author, lecturer, and freelancer covering travel and outdoors around Philadelphia. His work can be found at Examiner. Top Spots. CBS 3. Philadelphia News. Shyamaween Benefiting The M.
Night Shyamalan Foundation. Philadelphia Weather.
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