#chinatown skatepark

[model-bts]

Today’s Location 📍

[traveling-couch-potato]

London Day 7

Now that I’ve had a day to recover I was ready to get back to exploring. I decided to meet up with a new friend that I’ve been talking to online named Andrew. We decided to spend the day in Little Venice.

We walked along the Venice Canals and aimlessly explored the area.

Eventually we lost track of the water and decided to find a spot for lunch. We happened on a restaurant called Zonzo that seemed to have very reasonably priced food so we stopped in for a bite. 

A simple delicious bruschetta and some tasty Mushroom Risotto. Nothing fancy but really filling.

Our post lunch plans were open ended and we decided to just keep wandering in the vague direction I needed to head toward for the afternoon. We headed toward Hyde Park where a music festival was being held. We tried to catch a peak inside but the whole event arena was thoroughly fenced off. So instead we just moved along, finding little shaded areas to occasionally stop and chat as we headed east.

Marble Arch

The 2 guys that decided to just go for it and play in the fountain were my heroes.

It was about time to meet up with my friend Faaiz at Picadilly Circus so I bid farewell to my new friend Andrew and headed over. I stopped by Minamoto Japanese Sweets to pick up a few expensive but tasty snacks. Minamoto is a chain that can be found in almost several major cities and it’s a perfect place to pick up a nice gift or snack. Once Faaiz and I met up after some hectic coordination, he took me to our first stop of the afternoon/night in London Chinatown.

Greeted by the colorful familiar Dragon Gate that always welcomes me into Chinatown.

I found it interesting that Chinatown was more a collection of all things Asian. I saw several Japanese and Vietnamese shops and restaurants around and strangely enough it made me feel much more at home. Faaiz brought me to Waxy o Connor’s, an Irish pub just outside the Chinatown Gate. I got to try my first proper Irish Whiskey here and wow I don’t know if I could drink whiskey any other way ever again.

This place was HUGE. They had giant tv’s throughout the venue where you could watch the game or you can find little hidden nooks to hide out and have a more private conversation (preferably while sharing yummy Japanese snacks).

After our drink we took a train toward the Thames River and walked to Tate Modern where they were having extended hours since it was a Friday night.

Watching the sunset from Blackfriars Bridge.

Still one of my favorite museums in the world! First time getting to visit at night.

We spent a couple hours enjoying the museum but it wasn’t nearly enough time with how expansive it is. The late nights end around 9:30pm and by the time we left we had barely browsed over 1/3 of the whole collection.

After we got kicked out of the museum we slowly headed toward the tube as Faaiz continued pointing out some various landmarks.

A lovely walk alongside the water at night.

Laurence Olivier statue that Faaiz excitedly pointed out since he is an actor and a giant theater nerd.

Undercroft Skatepark where a few dozen kids were practicing on their scooters and boards. We spent a good half hour here just watching them perform stunts.

All in all an eventful but very lowkey day. I appreciated that Faaiz still did his best to show me around. He was going through personal issues but still spent the entire night out with me and I’m glad I was able to help get his mind off things. Looking forward to seeing him tomorrow.

[reminiscences]

another attempt at blogging

i started this tumblr a couple years ago at the same time kate did. i can’t remember why—i’m sure tumblr was in the news again for some reason. i guess it was before the great porn purge. i was talking about blogging again this week with my friend daniel, and i woke up this morning and he had sent me a blog he wrote on a new tumblr account early in the morning, so to continue my regression to the early 2010s, i too have rebooted tumblr, given it an era-appropriate name, and decided to give it another go.

the problem with having a newsletter is that i don’t think anyone wants to hear from me in their inbox daily, so i’ve become very precious about the things i write there. it feels like it has to really matter. i like blogs because they’re disposable and can be dumb and not your best writing. how many two-graf tumblr posts did i write in 2011 that were just thoughts i idly had during a statistics lecture? anyway, here’s the first blog, they won’t all be this long probably. 

When I think about eventually looking back at this year I think about what I want to remember from it. I will remember the first week of March. I’ll remember the last birthday party I attended in person at Branch Ofc, a perfectly serviceable Crown Heights bar that was very full of people. I’ll think about that night and how I showed up to the party with a Ziplock full of homemade salted chocolate chip cookies in my purse, how I shared them with a table where the birthday-haver and their friends sat. Breathing in the same air as the four dozen other people crammed into the bar. I can’t imagine it now. I like Branch Ofc because it is unpretentious without pretending to be a dive, unlike Sharlene’s, which tries too hard to mimic the aesthetic trappings of an authentic dive bar but is really just a normal Park Slope bar. Branch Ofc is just a bar where you can buy drinks, and it was an eight-minute walk from my old apartment. It used to be a bar with a photobooth and Big Buck Hunter but I think both of those are gone now. 

For a few days in March, it felt like people were preparing for a snow day. Everyone was slightly more on edge than giddy—but only slightly. “WFH but make it a coffeeshop” I saw on someone’s Instagram story, a selfie with four of their friends coworking somewhere in Bushwick, completely nullifying the point of a work-from-home edict. I ran into my friend Maddie at the renovated Key Food on Nostrand the next week. Maddie, her roommate and I were in the aisle with the Pop Tarts and the Oreos. “I feel like I should get those?” we asked each other, pointing at junk food. I wasn’t wearing a mask or gloves; nobody was. Some guy wearing a Cornell University Sigma Chi tshirt walked by us with the largest bag of dried beans I’ve ever seen in my life slung over his shoulder. That was a man who had never soaked dried beans in his life. I wonder if he ever ate the beans. We were a bunch of idiot 20-somethings blindly grabbing for cans of soup and Fritos for the end of the world. What were any of us doing there? Why was it imperative that day that I make and freeze a lasagna? Maddie’s roommate had fresh lasagna noodles from Eataly she wasn’t going to use before she left for her parents’ house, and she said I could have those. She brought them over for me and I idly wondered if you could get Coronavirus from someone else’s fresh pasta noodles or if the heat of the oven would kill the germs. I made my lasagna.

I’ll think about how March-to-May is just one long gray blurry streak in my head. I baked, I got into running, I said “running with a mask? No thank you, no more running for me,” I got a job, I felt bad about getting a job when everyone I knew in journalism was getting laid off. I did a lot of Zoom Zumba. At first I slept terribly, and then I started sleeping too much, and then I stopped sleeping again at some point during that stretch. There was a novelty to suddenly being inside all the time that made it feel like an excuse to get “really into martinis.” I got really into martinis. Then I stopped drinking for a couple months. Remember “Zoom happy hours”? 

The thing I use most as a means of setting apart different eras in my head is the music I used as a soundtrack at the time. I rang in the 2014 new year in my cute apartment on Westcott Street in Syracuse with my college boyfriend, drunk and blaring Cold Cave, before we walked down the street to Alto Cinco and got Mexican food and passed out. It was my senior year and I only had a few more months of living like this and I loved the small life I’d built for myself there. Of course, it couldn’t stay. When we broke up a year and a half later after he moved to New York, where I had been living for most of a year, I walked around the neighborhood near the Myrtle-Wyckoff stop, close to where we were living together, listening to Mitski’s 2014 album Bury Me At Makeout Creek. I sat in Maria Hernandez Park and watched a bunch of kids play Red Rover. I didn’t especially want to go home because I hadn’t taken an escape route into account when we broke up and somehow timed it out so that things ended after the first of the month, leaving me with three-and-a-half weeks of continuing to share an apartment with someone whose heart I had just broken. In retrospect it’s clear to me that I had just outgrown a relationship with someone five years older than me who hadn’t grown up at all, but I hear that Mitski album now and all I think about are the cold early April days of 2015 when no place and no person felt like home. There’s a line in First Love/Late Spring, by Mitski, where she sings “胸がはち切れそうで,” which translates to something like “My chest is about to burst (with grief).” My advice to recent college graduates moving to New York is to simply not do anything the way I did it. 

So when I think about 2020, I do not want to associate any music I previously had fond memories of with this year. This is unfortunate because every musician I like who produces sad music has nothing but time on their hands now and they’ve all come out with new songs and albums. My recently played selections on Spotify look like a cry for help: Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, even Tigers Jaw. 

On Saturday I couldn’t sleep in. I woke up at 5:30 and watched the sun appear through my bedroom windows. I kept rolling over, trying to sleep again, but it was futile. Eventually I got up and got dressed, and left my apartment on foot. The walk into lower Manhattan is a few miles from my new place in Fort Greene. I walked west on Fulton, and then down Flatbush. It would have saved me ten minutes to take the Manhattan Bridge, but I’ve always regarded it as the ugliest of the bridges to cross on foot or on bike—last fall, I would walk home from Ben’s apartment over the Manhattan Bridge, and it was just so grey. You get an okay view of Dumbo, I guess, on the walk east, but it isn’t much to look at. When I got back to the Brooklyn side on those walks, I’d get on the A at High Street and take it back to Nostrand instead of walking the last couple miles. 

So I chose the Brooklyn Bridge this time. It was as busy as you’d expect it to be in a non-pandemic event. Instagram boyfriends took pictures of their girlfriends, who took off their masks for a few seconds for the right shot. I saw a couple taking engagement pictures in front of the lower Manhattan skyline. It felt so normal, pedestrians and bicyclists squeezing past each other at the narrow points. 

I was listening to Saint Cloud, the Waxahatchee album that came out a few months ago, turning it over and over in my brain like a rock you pick up at the beach and end up carrying with you on a long walk. The album, outwardly, has this gauzy blue-sky Americana vibe but when you listen to the lyrics of some of the songs it feels like peeling back layers of skin until you hit a raw nerve ending. Every song feels like a eulogy for this year. “You might mourn all that you wasted/That’s just part of the haul,” Katie Crutchfield sings on Ruby Falls. I got to the title track, which closes out the album, as I ascended the bridge. When you get baaaack on the M train, watch the cityyyyyy mutaaaaaaate, she sings. I guess she’s singing about New York. Is there another M train somewhere? I don’t know. I’m going to think about this stupid year whenever I listen to this album, I thought.

I got off the bridge at City Hall, surveyed the ongoing occupation movement there and the literal dozens of cops that had seemingly been deployed to stand there and, at best, do nothing. I walked down Centre Street, eventually winding through the little park by Baxter Street where two adults were playing ping pong, which felt like a socially distanced sport, all things considered. I walked down all those side streets in Chinatown as the sun struggled to break through the oppressive clouds. I walked by Nom Wah, past the salon Polly taught me will give you a very good $12 blowout, past that annoying bar where the bartenders are dressed like scientists, past the place where Kate and I got our auras read on her birthday in January, and ended up at Deluxe Green Bo. I ordered my spicy wontons in peanut sauce and ate them right there, the hot plastic container burning my knees as I sat on the sidewalk. 

Afterwards I walked by all my favorite places—the skatepark under the bridge, Cervo’s, Beverly’s (RIP), Little Canal, Jajaja, the Hawa Smoothie near the East Broadway F. The skaters were hanging out in Dimes Square. Everything had changed but standing outside Kiki’s, it felt for a second like almost nothing had. It was almost a normal Saturday on Canal Street. The sky stayed electric blue until I got back to Brooklyn. 

[mattyslittleworld]

6.

I’m in a cafe in a French little corner of Toronto called Leslieville. I’ve been on the road for a few days by myself, about to start a Canadian week run. My bro hit me about booking a small cool situation and honestly I needed it. First show is a house show and I pulled up to load in...a punk girl full of patches watering plants on her deck. The house looked condemned. I walk in and the house smells like cat shit, there’s stains everywhere, food everywhere, spaced out wonderful dedicated humans, and hardcore posters all over the walls, showing the house shows they’ve thrown over the years. The punk girl said they’ve been doing shows for 6 years. They slide the couch over and setup a PA. This is exactly what I need in my soul. I grew up in these punk squats all over the world. I am this. I come from this. These people don’t know who Casanova or Albee Al are. They don’t know Fetty Wap or Tsu Surf. They know Realm Hulud and this underground culture they love applying to the outside world that pushes them away. A truth to be romanticized.

 I felt like I burnt myself out a month ago. Taking my dreams and flipping them into reality - the loss of friendship and love made me march forward and demand a new life and once that door opened I ran full speed and never looked back....until Quad Studios a few months back. I looked in the mirror and found nothing of the person I was - no resemblance of that kid. That scared me. So when John hit me with this I accepted immediately and packed my shit. I just wanna have convos about challenging, progressive, active things. Trade road stories. Talk about 7inches. Hardcore and punk. I’m grateful to be able to experience both of these worlds. I asked the punk girl if there was a coffee shop and she said there’s a booouuugie one around the corner if “you like spending a lot of money” and when I got here the barista charged me 2 bucks. I love that fuck the system attitude, although at the same time I think I’m becoming a part of the system - the sold out, corporate side of the music business that we all ran against our whole lives. I mean I just wrote a song with Casanova about texting. I just rapped 4 bars with Tsu Surf about gucci sunglasses and Louie v coats and fucking in the back of an Uber. 

I packed my shit and went to NYC and finally got to check out the Queens Bridge housing that Nas grew up in. They were huge. So many. It was so awesome. You can sense the pride and community. From there I just drove around NYC finding spots I used to hangout in as a kid. Blasting inspiring tunes and just vibin out. 

Ended up in Spanish Harlem, Queens, China Town. Damn I love New York. At 4 am I left and started my drive to Canada with a stop at Niagara Falls, where I had a Hotel for 2 days waiting for me. I checked in and just cooled out for 2 days it was amazing. I forgot how much I love touring alone. I drove a half hour to Andy’s house and hung out with him and his wife for the night. And damn did I need that. I needed trust. Loyalty. Familiarity. Friendship. Somebody who grew up fighting like me. Who left that life behind like me. Who’s been in real trouble and seen real life hell like me. We both came so far.  Beautiful.

Im currently in a hotel in Chicoutmi, Quebec. The window open, breeze coming in nice and sweet. Canadian currency everywhere. Coffee cups everywhere. Ive only eaten fruit the past 2 days. I feel good. Last night the drive was really lonely and long, but I toughed it out and here I am. Thinking back a few days ago to Toronto, I was so inspired and so electric. The hotel was right downtown and I walked all the way to Chinatown and the markets. Running around by myself blasting music. You go throughout your life knowing you need to outlive your demons - nights like that really defines that. The shows have been so cool. Great people. Great conversations. I have a few Canadians and im back in the states. 

Ive been editing three music videos along the way. One of which is with Casanova. Im really proud of this. I never thought id get to such a height of being in the room with someone as famous as him. We did the song and it was amazing - but for him to double back and hit this video with me and Rob, damn. The day of the shoot I was so quiet and so awkward before I left. Is this happening? Is this really a thing? Is he really gunna show up? A model is coming. Rooms have been rented. People have been invested. Its all on us. We got there early and set up the set. Ive said it many times before on here - my life socially is completely different. Everybody in my life is brand new and not many people know of my past musical endeavors or even my past in general. But having Rob and Colgan there with me really made me happy. Through thick and thin. I didnt hear from Cass all day so I shot him a text - no answer. I was like oh my god should I call and be annoying? Called him and immediately picked up AYO WHATS GOOD MATTY! 1030 right?! And I was like damn. This dudes a good dude. I asked him if he wanted any Hennessy and he said Yeah pick me up a bottle of dusse. I was like no problem dude….hung up…looked at Rob and went…”What is Dusse?” And he was like NO IDEA LOL. Hit Colgan who was on the way like yo can you scoop Cass some Dusse on the way?? He was like WTF IS THAT!!! I was like IDK so I did the whitest thing ive ever done (Besides being a white rapper) and sent him a google image screen shot and boom nailed it in time. Cass calls and belv goes to let him and his crew in and they mob up and its on. All love from there with such a good vibe. Me and my day 1’s making history…..I remember specifically me rob and Colgan at the port Monmouth skatepark hopelessly lost of a future. Written off by our town and society. Parents let down. Pieces of local shit that’ll amount to nothing. Here we are. Roc Nation….from the basements man. With Belv in the house - without him…none of this would be possible. Killed the video and it left me inspired to see bro just get in the back of a black suburban and drive off. Like damn. Thats wealth. Mentally, and financially. Thats inspiring to me. To be that much of a millionaire but still come and put on for some kids he sees potential in. 

I feel a void though. I want to share this all with somebody. Im ready for a relationship - I feel my mind and body gravitating towards that way of thinking and behavior. I think back to the days of having a home in someones heart….so comforting. I needed to run though. I needed this time. I needed to raise hell. I needed those fights, to fuck my life up. I NEEDED this. I needed to plant my feet on this planet and just get my name known. Make shit happen. The window is open right now…and a storm is rolling in off in the distance. You can see lightning. You can see the clouds darken. Wow. After this show im going to rush back here and just watch it on this sill. 

I feel extremely emotional right now. Im trembling. 

[iamfereal]

Spring morning in nyc. Pullup

[theskatetrip]

Chinatown Banks, New York, New York

The Chinatown Banks in Manhattan were one of my favorite NYC spots when I was younger, so I was happy to find myself skating through Chinatown one night this winter. 

As a kid, I loved skating transition but didn’t always have the option in the Northeast. I spent a lot of time skating wood skateparks, and any chance to skate something “real” was important to me. Whenever I went street skating downtown, I’d try to stop here---though its really only worth it at night due to crowds.

This spot is rough, to say the least. It’s borderline unskateable with a normal set up, but with enough care I’m usually able to find one or two sections where I can make it to the lip. At certain points in the banks’ long history there have been patches of quick-crete, which attract a big rush of skaters, invariably leading to friction with the store owners nearby and the patches’ eventual destruction. 

The Chinatown Banks are far from perfect, but to me they’ll always be worth a quick session. 

[tunabora]

Lunch break! #wonderwoman #bmx #fanart #skatepark (at Chinatown Central Plaza)

[davidcarterr]

Elijah Berle Interview

Elijah Berle-Chinatown. Photo courtesy of Vans

Sometimes the stars align and sometimes they don’t. This Elijah Berle interview has been on the boil for a good few weeks now but a combination of bad phone connections, ridiculous amounts of travelling, (on Elijah’s part) and a number of logistics foul ups had us thinking that it would never happen. Just when we’d given up on the idea, I received a phone call from a random US number and on picking it up, was greeted by the extremely fatigued sounding voice of the man in question. Had I known beforehand that he’d been to New Zealand, China and Brazil in the last four weeks that I’d been chasing him, I’d probably have given Elijah a break but, as they say, ignorance is bliss. Big thanks to all at Vans for facilitating this one, and even bigger thanks to Elijah for taking time out of his stupidly busy schedule to chat Natas spins, Venice history, Dill’s teeth and invert technique with some random Brit less than 24 hours after landing home in the USA…

How many interviews have you done this month?

(Laughing) I’ve lost count man honestly, I’ve pretty much been doing them non stop for the last three weeks. It’s cool though – it’s all part of the job these days. Sorry for lagging on this one…

When you were asked about how you got into skating on The Bunt, you said that you were ‘born into it’ – is it true that both your mother and uncle were skaters before you picked one up yourself? Was this something that you saw as a kid?

Yeah that’s it. Around the time when I first picked up a skateboard and started getting into it, my uncle would take me to skateparks at the weekend. He was fully into it himself so I guess that made it less of a chore for him. My mom knew how to cruise around too. She was cool with us skating up and down the drive and would come out and join in sometimes. They were both coming at skateboarding from a positive perspective because of it, which was cool as a kid. It seems cooler now as an adult than it seemed back then though…

Growing up in Santa Monica, you’re pretty much in the heartland of some deep, deep skateboard history that shaped the future – was this something that you were aware of as a kid skating around there?

I did grow up in right in the centre of a pretty heavy place in terms of skate history but it wasn’t something that I was aware of when I was young. Obviously I knew that there was skateboarding going on everywhere around me, but I didn’t really connect the dots till later in terms of the historical side of Venice. I’d hear stories about how famous videos had been filmed around where I grew up, but as a kid it didn’t really mean that much to me because it was just how that area was – as a kid you only know what you’re exposed to and to me that was surfers and skateboarders. Skateboarding is a lot more ‘normal’ here than it probably is in the UK – it’s just like having a bike or something so everyone skates really.

Within a small area of Venice there are so many spots that have been massively important to skate history – from the curbs down at the beach, to what used to be The Pit with the ledges that everyone recognises, through to things like the fire hydrant that Natas did the ‘Natas spin’ on. Given that you grew up around these places, did they still seem as magical to you as they did to a kid like me, growing up 1000’s of miles away?

(Laughing), I definitely know what you mean but honestly, it’s hard for me to imagine it from your perspective because to me, the Venice curbs were just our local spot, you know? We’d never been anywhere else at that point either as we were just little kids, so to us it was really just our neighbourhood. We definitely spent a lot of time skating those curbs though – that was the hang out spot; go surf, watch the sunset, try to get somebody to go buy us some beers, (laughs)…

Yeah that’s one benefit of living in the UK – it’s definitely a lot easier to get beers underage…

Yeah so I hear man. It certainly looked like that on the times when I’ve been over. People drinking everywhere!

Elijah Berle Backside airs for Anthony Acosta in BCN, another spiritual home of liberal cerveza consumption

Which of the famous Santa Monica/Venice spots did you actually get a chance to skate? I’m guessing that the Pit ledges might already have been gone when you were pretty young, right?

Yeah, that was before my time unfortunately, they were already buried by the time I was old enough to start exploring. I heard that place was pretty sketchy towards the end though, so maybe it’s a good thing.

You must’ve done a pilgrimage to the Natas hydrant though, right? I’m pretty sure that’s mandatory for anyone in the Santa Monica area…

Oh yeah, once we were old enough to be clued into that, we definitely took a trip across Venice to pay our respects. I think I’d probably skated past it hundreds of times before I put two and two together and realised that it was the actual Natas one though. I actually did a Natas spin on it a while ago too, stuck it up on Instagram just to show some respect. It’s exactly as it was when he did it too, with the signpost next to it so you can get off the hydrant. This whole area is pretty much a skate museum once you get into it I guess…

You have mad tranny skills too, so does that mean that you were a skatepark rat too in the beginning?

Yeah kind of: I’d go to this skatepark in Santa Monica called ‘The Cove’ with my uncle quite a lot when I was younger. You had to wear a helmet though which sucked, but as a kid you’re only really thinking about skating. I’d run the helmet religiously from the age of about 10 till say 14 or so, at which point I started to be over the helmet which I guess pushed my friends and I to go skate street more. I definitely grew up skating parks though – I got a good upbringing on transition. There were a few years where I didn’t, once I’d started street skating more, but I guess the kid years in the helmet were imprinted in my brain because I could still skate tranny pretty well. There were also a lot of backyard mini ramps around too, that was another pretty normal thing for me growing up. I had one in my backyard, the skate shop had one…

What was the deal with your ramp? In that interview you did with Hamish you mentioned that some of the neighbours were cool about it and some weren’t. Is it still there?

Nah, that ramp is gone now. We did pretty well though – we had it for four years. The city made us take it down in the end because of permit bullshit because it was too big of a structure to have in the yard without the right permit, but it was sick whilst we had it. It was the first ramp that we’d ever built too, which kind of made it special. Took us about a week to build – 5 and a half feet high with a seven foot extension: that’s where I really learned how to skate transition properly I think. Most of my trick bag comes from that thing. You don’t tend to see backyard ramps so much these days, maybe because Venice is mad expensive now but back then, as a kid, everyone had a backyard mini ramp.

What about seeing famous skaters around Santa Monica/Venice? Were you aware of pros being in the area and/or people filming at these spots that were so local to you?

We’d see them out filming yeah, I didn’t know who any of them really were at that stage but I knew they were pros because they’d have people filming them and all that. It was pretty normal to see it, but I wasn’t really a kid who looked up to any skaters in particular. Skating was just something that I did with my friends. I was never really chasing after getting sponsored or anything…I know everyone says that, but that’s how it was for me. Things just kind of happened…

You’ve mentioned before about how the Venice park is this crazy showing off kind of place these days, with 100’s of kids flying around entertaining the passers-by and because of that, you don’t tend to go there much yourself, despite it being on your doorstep. Is that still the case?

I do go there a bit but yeah, it’s generally pretty crowded. I do like skating the bowl there when it’s quiet but it rarely is, especially in the summertime. It’s just one of those parks that attracts huge amounts of spectators, because of where it is I guess. When you have that many tourists hungry for entertainment, that’s when the full-pad fly out demo’s start: I can’t handle that vibe really.

Do you ever see Jesse Martinez down there? He was the unofficial caretaker of the place for a long time I believe?

Yeah, I see him from time to time, you never really know when he’s going to show up but he definitely still localises it. I’m sure he’s still skating when it’s empty you know – he’s Venice royalty.

Can you see yourself living anywhere else but Venice? Are you not tempted to move up to L.A?

I think I’ll probably stay here. I travel that much these days that I love having somewhere relatively mellow like Venice to come home to. I’m not sure I could handle the traffic and general chaos of L.A as an actual resident. Venice can be hectic too but it’s generally mellow and has that kind of ‘people hanging out on the streets and walking around’ vibe that places like L.A just don’t have because of the size of them.

Santa Monica and Venice used to have kind of a bad rep back in the day – can it still be sketchy around there sometimes? Like people who don’t know the area wandering off into the wrong neighbourhood etc?

Oh yeah, it can definitely still be sketchy. It’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be back in the day but if you get into it with the wrong people, shit can still get hectic pretty quickly. The whole Venice/Santa Monica area has definitely been gentrified over the last decade so you don’t see that side of it as much as you used to but the sketchiness is still here, away from the main strip.

You’ve been travelling a lot recently whilst we’ve been trying to get this done – were you just in New Zealand?

I was in New Zealand, but I’ve been to China and then to Brazil for a week each after getting back from NZ. That’s all happened in the space of like 4 weeks…

Shit! I feel bad for harassing you now…

(Laughing), it’s all good man. I got home from Brazil yesterday and honestly, I’m pretty happy to be home now. That’s a lot of miles in a month, even for somebody like me who lives on that kind of schedule. I’ve been going pretty hard. I’m excited to be back for the summer, spend some time with the lady and the family, chill out at the beach. Just back into Venice time…

Did you go anywhere that you hadn’t visited previously?

I’d never been to New Zealand before no, I loved that place, it’s beautiful – I’m definitely down to go back there again. Lord of the Rings shit – it’s crazy – like big cities and urban but also tropical too. I loved it there.

Any Lee Ralph sightings?

Unfortunately not, he was staying a long way from where we were in Auckland.

Was this for a Vans project?

Yeah, a filming trip for Vans: Full mission style – trying to squeeze every minute in, and hurt as much of my body as possible, (laughs).

You’ve got a good repertoire of inverts – what’s your favourite upside down move and why?

You know what? I haven’t done many inverts in a while. I don’t want to say that I’ve lost touch with them as they’re probably still in the trick bag somewhere, just that I’ve not had the opportunity recently. My favourite one to do would be the eggplant I think. It’s the scariest one too because that trick can go wrong so badly if you miss your hand placement, I’ve done that before. Straight down to the flat bottom on your chin, which is never good. In terms of the feeling of it though when it works, I love that one.

Ever got any constructive criticism from Grosso on your invert technique? It’s a topic he definitely likes to talk about and, with you both riding for Vans, I was wondering whether he’s shouted at you for incorrect technique…

(Laughing), no, surprisingly: I think mine slid under his radar…

Or maybe they were just legit enough to get a Grosso pass?

I very much doubt that. Maybe there were just plenty of other worse offenders out there in terms of technique so that I escaped without getting a tongue lashing, (laughing).

You joined Fucking Awesome relatively recently which is a brand with a huge profile and a team scattered around the country – who do you skate with the most?

I skate with AVE a lot. Aidan and Sean Pablo are around in L.A. too so I see them quite often. Nak and Kevin Bradley all live around Venice so we’re out together pretty often.

Is there like an official FA HQ where people meet up to go on missions together, or is it more of an ‘everyone’s on their own mission’ kind of vibe?

Just wherever we’re skating normally but we do have a warehouse kind of in the middle of where everyone lives. We’ll go there to collect boards and whatnot and go off on missions from there fairly often. It’s the warehouse that Dill posts footage of on the @faflatgroundentertainment Instagram sometimes. There nothing much there, but everyone loves nice flatland don’t they?

Everybody loves a Jason Dill story and you’re in a good position to have witnessed countless Dill antics – do you have a good anecdote about the boss for us?

(Laughing), yeah I’ve got a good one actually that happened recently. I watched him get carded for cigarettes a few weeks ago and he didn’t have any ID on him so was snapping pretty hard at this lady in the store. He ended up convincing her to sell him cigarettes by verifying his age via his teeth, (laughing). His teeth are allegedly ‘fixed’ but compared to your average human they’re still pretty fucked up. He basically made her look into his mouth whilst saying, “Look lady, look at the state of my fucking teeth – do you really think I’m under-21?” Kind of bamboozled her I guess as I’m assuming that’s not the average interaction in her store. Whilst she was still staring at him with this puzzled look on her face he just threw the money down, grabbed the cigs and goes, “Alright, have a nice day lady!” Not that unusual with Dill really, there are endless amounts of stories but that’s a funny one that happened recently.

Look lady, look at the state of my fucking teeth – do you really think I’m under-21?

So aside from the release of this Vans shoe, what else have you been up to of late?

Like I mentioned earlier with all the trips I’ve done in the last month – that’s all for a video part that Greg Hunt and I are working on. It should be out in the next couple of months, hopefully…

Is this a solo part?

Yeah, mainly me I think – at least in terms of having a ‘part’. There will be some footage of other people in there, whoever has clips, but yeah, it’s basically a solo part. Not that I’ve been travelling on my own with Greg, other people have come along too, but the focus for me at least, is working on this project.

You were pretty vocal about SOTY the year that Guy didn’t win – you’ve gotta be hyped on TJ wining this year though, right? Pretty much undeniable that choice?

Yeah, I mean I honestly can’t think of anybody else who has done what that kid’s done over the last year. He definitely deserved it. He’s a hard worker. He’s gotten so gnarly so quickly – definitely the Skater of the Year in my eyes.

Do you get to skate with him a lot? He must be incredible to watch in the flesh – the amount of pop he has is supernatural…

I haven’t really skated with him that much because him and Bill were on, not a secret thing as such, but like really low key and focused. They didn’t really want too many other people around whilst he was filming for Blessed. TJ is really driven, as is Bill, and they had a fairly defined idea of what they wanted to get and where they wanted to go, so they kept it low key to avoid getting kicked out of spots because of having too much of a crew tagging along.

Going back to filming – what’s your take on that part of your ‘job’? You’re from the generation where it’s normal to always be filming, whereas pros from earlier eras kind of looked at it sometimes as being a pain in the arse. What’s your position? Do you enjoy the filming process and everything that comes with it?

Honestly, I love it most of the time. When it’s going good, I genuinely enjoy it but then of course when it’s not going well, it can be the worst thing ever for all involved. It’s just the nature of it, you know. With that said – for somebody in my position, filming is what you’re supposed to be doing. Like you say, it’s ‘the job’ so it’s not really up to me anyhow. I need to do it, whether I feel like it or not. It’s definitely easier when I’m working with somebody like Greg Hunt too, who I have a lot of history and a friendship with. It is what is…

One major difference these days I guess is that the Internet is always hungry – you can’t really just chill when you’re in your position but I guess the good side is that nothing gets wasted anymore. There’s always an outlet for footage – whether it be Instagram, quickfire stuff, full parts, even slams – does that add more pressure or do you prefer it that way?

Yeah it’s good. More people get to see everything these days – kids love seeing stuff on Instagram too, maybe things that a few years ago wouldn’t make it into a video you know? It gives people another perspective on skating, rather than only seeing the finished product. As much as people like to talk shit on Instagram and the shortened attention span that it plays to, I think there are definite positives to it. Sometimes you’ll watch a full video and it’s harder to absorb what you’re seeing and remember specific things, whereas with Instagram, you can focus on particular aspects or tricks and it makes it more memorable. That’s how I look at it anyway. It gives people a platform to focus on one thing, rather than it getting lost in a longer production. Whether that’s good or bad in a more general sense isn’t for me to say but that’s one of the positives that I take from it.

As much as people like to talk shit on Instagram and the shortened attention span that it plays to, I think there are definite positives to it

How often do you get to go skate when there’s nobody pointing a camera or an iPhone at you? Or is that just not a reality any more?

Yeah that still happens. I’ll go skate with my friends and just have fun but even then, if somebody’s trying something worth filming, I’m not afraid to break the phone out and stick it on Instagram. The whole process of documenting skateboarding is just so much easier and less complicated these days – I don’t see that as a negative thing at all. I enjoy coming across cool shit on Insta myself so why wouldn’t other people who don’t get the opportunity to live the lifestyle that I do not enjoy it too?

You’ve always rocked Vans since I can remember seeing you in clips/mags so it must be a trip to have your first pro shoe coming out, right?

Oh yeah for sure. It didn’t really seem real until I saw other people, who I didn’t know, wearing my shoe. For a while I was the only person wearing them but now I’ll be out on the streets somewhere and I’ll see some random skater rocking my shoe – that’s when it kicks in and yeah, like you say, it’s a trip. It’s weird but in a good way – a really cool feeling.

The latest colour of the Berle Pro

I know you’ve been heavily involved in the R&D side of this one – tell us a bit about that process please? How did you go about testing the new ‘waffle control’ tech? Was it a case of just skating samples and then giving feedback to Vans? Or did it go deeper than that?

It works pretty much exactly as you’ve said. It took a lot longer than I initially expected though, just because the time involved in getting samples made is much more of a hassle as they have to make all new molds in the factory first. It was nerve-wracking at times too as the deadline was coming up and we were still tweaking details but it ended up coming together and it’s a really good shoe so I’m stoked.

What’s the major difference between this shoe and the Authentic colourway that you came out with a while back? They both definitely have that Vans legacy feel…

This new shoe definitely still has the board feel that you’d expect from a Vans, it just offers a lot more support for your foot and lasts a lot, lot longer. That was the main focus really, I wanted something really durable that would last for as long as possible whilst still giving you the classic Vans board feel. I mean, hopefully that’s a win-win for the people out there buying them. They might be a little bit more expensive to start with but you’ll be saving in the long run…

How did you go about getting Eric Dressen involved? I’m assuming you and he are friends right? He’s genuinely once of the nicest human beings that I’ve ever met – almost like he’s more stoked on people being stoked on meeting him than they are.

Yeah I know Eric pretty well. I knew the kind of thing I wanted in terms of the lettering for the shoe and knew that his style would be perfect for it. I just hit him up, asked him to write my name in his style and do the little logo. He was stoked, as he always is and honestly, the very first version he sent to me was the one that ended up being used on my shoe. I’m hyped to have him involved too, like you say, he’s a really nice dude.

360 Flip. Sunland, CA. Photo courtesy of Vans

Geoff Rowley always speaks highly of you – do you have any idea what this video piece that he’s working on is going to be like? Seems like he’s going all out for blood on this one…

I don’t know because he’s been out on his own mission. Just solo style, going on crazy adventures like you’d expect. As to what’s in there, I have no idea but I’m willing to bet he’s going to surprise everyone with it.

Have you been skating any pools recently?

No recently, but I’m on a hunt again at the moment.

Any Salba sessions?

Yeah I’ve skated with Salba a few times, not as many times as I’d like to. I need to go out into his zone and get on their mission. He knows where all the pools are at.

If you could only skate one type of terrain for the rest of your life, what would you pick and why?

Transition: more fun for less work and effort. Tranny is just more satisfying to me, plus I’ll be able to skate it for much longer than I’ll be able to skate street.

What about the best skatepark you’ve ever skated?

Hmm, probably Lincoln City in Oregon. That place is really gnarly so you have to be on top of your shit but if you’re on a good one, that’s the best skatepark in the US I think.

What’s your favourite US city to skate?

Maybe New York just because it’s so much fun to skate around the city – in a way that you can’t do in L.A. for example. You can go out with a big crew in New York and just skate around – no cars, no traffic jams – just hitting things as you come across them.

You were out in London for Street League last year and I saw a few clips pop up on Insta of you skating Mile End skatepark. Did you get a chance to go anywhere else in London?

Sadly not – just Mile End and the course at Street League. I had a good time though. I’ve been over once before for the Pretty Sweet premiere but it was pouring with rain and super cold so all I saw that time was the hotel and the pub. I’d definitely like to come back and see more of London.

What’s it like being in a contest like Street League from the perspective of somebody actually skating the course? Do you enjoy it?

Yeah definitely, it’s enjoyable. That was a bad year for me to do it kinda because I was trying to film a video part too and I missed the other Street League events because of that. The London one was good though, I liked the course and the general vibe was cool.

What do you feel about the way that Social Media has made everyone accessible to every kid in the world now? Is there a downside to that?

I don’t know how there would be a downside to it really. I mean, from my perspective – the more people that see your footage the better. You’re promoting your sponsors and yourself so everyone’s happy. Then the people watching on Social Media get to see clips and whatever for free, rather than having to spend their money. Like I said earlier – I think Social Media is a positive thing, at least from my own perspective.

I’m going to be interviewing Cephas and Donovan at The Bunt later this month – any suggestions of something to ask them to put them on the spot like they do to everyone else?

You know what, I don’t really know those guys that well. I just met them both that one time when we did the podcast. I think the best advice would be to be at least as drunk, if not more drunk than they are, then go from there. That approach seems to work well for them.

Ok Elijah – thanks so much for your time – I’ll end it on a quick one if that’s ok: do you have any advice for any kids who might be reading this who dream of following a similar life path to yours? What’s the secret to success?

There’s no secret. No matter what your dream is, whether it’s skateboarding or anything else, just never stop chasing it. I mean, what better stuff do you have to do than chase your dreams? Nothing right?

Interview by Ben Powell

Shop for Elijah’s latest shoe and more from Vans

The post Elijah Berle Interview appeared first on Slam City Skates Blog.

Elijah Berle Interview published first on https://medium.com/@LaderaSkateboar

[vision35mm]

Untitled Under Manhattan Bridge (2018)

[rosannau]

Skate (I)

July 2017

Manhattan, New York

[unclebear83-blog]

"Tower Guard Dog" photographed by Aj Tinker #gardenphotography photography #bostonohotography #bostonphotographer #landscapephotography #hikingphotography📷 #wildernessphotography #cityphotography #graffitiphotography #bostongraffiti #trainphotography #grafitiphotography #grafitiphotographer #chinatownphotography #chinatownboston #chinatown #chinatowngrafitti #grafitiart #graffitiporn #graffitiphotography #bostonphotographer #bostonphotographycenter #abandonedplaces #abandonedphotography #abandonednewengland #abandonedhospital #skatepark #skateparkphotography #petphotography #doggraffitiart #doggraffitiphotography #doggraffiti

[snkrspplsmx-blog]

@thehundreds ・ ・ ・ segunda ronda con @chinatownmarket está casi aquí. Este jueves, The Hundreds presenta una nueva colección con @ mikecherman's Chinatown Market. 🙂 💣 Disponible en los distribuidores autorizados de The Hundreds 'y Chinatown Market · · · · · #skateboardindonesia #skatespot #skateboarding #skaters #skatefam #skatelife #skatecrunch #skateboards #skateboardmag #skateeverydamnday #skateshop #skateday #skateboardingisfun #skateanddestroy #skateboardart #skateart #skategram #skateboarder #skateboard #skateordie #skatepark #skateboardinglife #skateboardingislife #skate #skateboardingisnotacrime (en Centro Cultural Teatro del Pueblo) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5YoPblHs3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=gyf7sg3msg2v

[18035515]

Response to Text Investigatio

Looking into the facts surrounding the abandoned area on the corner of Taranaki and Frederick Street, I have been able to conduct a text based investigation as to what was there, what is there, and what could be there.

Quite by chance I’ve learnt a lot about the old Chinatown of Wellington through my text research. The early settlers of from China came to Wellington just after an Earthquake raised the land in 1855. Between the 70s and 80s the land which is now the empty lot grew into a buzzing hub for the Chinese people in New Zealand and became what was known as Chinatown. Chinatown mainly consisted of Hainings Street, and a bit of Frederick Street and in 1905 one of the only two Chinese mission halls was built. Although there was a large rise in activity and markets in the Chinatown district, not everyone was happy about the way Wellington was looking. The Chinese community in Wellington was not treaty very kindly and were heavily policed, yet nothing out of the ordinary was ever found. On top of the heavy policing, there was often general racism towards the Chinese people, as well as multiple stories spread in the streets, saying that the Chinese would kidnap children and boil them. The worst case of racism towards the Chinese community was on the 24th of September 1905 when Lionel Terry shot dead Mr Joe Kum Young with a revolver before turning himself in. His reasoning for this was that he believed to be ridding the country of ‘yellow peril’. This resulted in Terry getting the death penalty, but skimming past it and being declared schizophrenic and spending the rest of his days in a mental institution.

The hall itself is quite interesting too. When it was first build in 1905, it served as the Chinese mission hall and was later welcomed / joined by the Anglican church. Nowadays the hall is the only remaining artefact from the Chinatown era which really captures the essence of the area, rundown as it may be. It’s noteworthy that the structure of the hall is still standing and remains unchanged to this day, other than some slight reinforcements a could of years ago. Though it is still standing, the hall has nearly completely run its course as it now sits isolated in the empty lot with broken windows and graffitied walls. Keeping the cultural heritage in mind, I think that it would be a great waste of time and history if we were to destroy the hall; instead I think that there is a way to engage multiple communities in the space.

As well as looking in to the history of the area itself, I have looked into some other places around the work that have refurbished rundown sights into something new and creative for the public to enjoy. Two notable examples of this would be firstly in the neighbourhood of the La Floresta in Brazil where an old building (standing at nearly 5000 square feet) sat abandoned for years and was not touched due to its cultural heritage. This was until in 2013 a group of artists and the Association of Cultural Villa Flores turned it into a vibrant space that has since been used to hold multiple art exhibitions, and live performances. The second example of this is the church of Santa Barbara that has been refurbished into an indoor skatepark. The church is personally the most interesting to me as it shows that the original structure can be reused as well as adding on a personal touch to it. The church was built in 1912 but had since been left to deteriorate. Until in 2007, Redbull and some crowdfunding pooled together and restructured the building, and turned it into an indoor skatepark. The skatepark was then decorated and painted by a well known Madrid street artist. This kind of thing is a great opportunity for something new and exciting like an attraction to be built, while still keeping the original structure and heritage of the building. It also provides a chance for local artists to help work on the project.

But what can I actually do about the space? The biggest issue with my investigation is the ownership of the land. Because the area has been left abandoned and unused, the council can’t really do too much with it. I have emailed them to find out what can be done and unfortunately they are not allowed to disclose the information as to what was there before, who owns the land, nor their plans for it. However I am able to start a petition that can then be taken to have a meeting with 5 representatives of the Wellington Council if I’m really serious about it.

This variety of information that I have collecting has helped me understand more about the history of the space, and what has happened to it. It has also given me an insight as to what we can do about it and how do go about it. One of the main things that I have taken from this research is that in no circumstances should we fully dismantle the old Chinese Mission Hall. The hall is one of the only remaining artefacts of Chinatown, and knowing this has slightly furthered my aims in this investigation to not only making the space a nicer place, but reestablishing that historic Chinese connection.  I think that the space is full of potential and could be quickly turned around into something that can be enjoyed by the public on a range of levels, either walking through, running past or driving past on your way to work.

[whatsfilming]

After what seemed like endless delays, Marvel’s Deadpool 2 filming is officially underway in Vancouver and area. Ryan Reynolds revealed the first behind the scenes set photo on June 17th, which contained a mild spoiler. The photo, shown below, shows Reynolds fully suited up as Deadpool in one of his classic poses outside of Hatley Castle. Fans of the X-Men movie franchise will recognize the location as the setting for Professor Charles Xavier’s mansion.

Dropped by X-Mansion. Looked closely for Beast's lawn bombs before taking well deserved nap.

A post shared by Ryan Reynolds (@vancityreynolds) on Jun 17, 2017 at 12:41pm PDT

Hatley Castle is also a widely popular filming location outside of the X-Men universe as well. This summer it will be seen as one of the primary locations in Disney’s Descendants 2 and it has also been used as the Queen Mansion in the CW TV series Arrow.

As many will remember, the first Deadpool movie filmed in Vancouver and area in the spring of 2015 with some reshoots happening later that year before it was released in theatres in February of 2016. Although one of the movie’s most infamous locations was Vancouver’s Georgia Street viaduct (which was closed down for several days of the course of a month), some of the other locations used were:

The Cobalt on Main Street

Gore Street / Keefer Street in Chinatown

126 Gore Street

300 Block of Powell Street

Burrard Iron Works

Leeside Skatepark

No. 5 Orange

PNE

REVS Bowling & Entertainment (Burnaby)

Arch Alley

Deadpool 2 Filming Locations

Thanks to @ThemysciraBound, @hedwigyitzhak and @janellehiebert1 who discovered some location details for Deadpool 2 filming this week:

Tuesday they’ll be filming on a rooftop located at 1090 West Pender Street in Vancouver from 7pm to 11pm. Wednesday through Friday they’ll move to Vancouver’s Gastown district to film various scenes around Cambie and W Cordova Streets from approximately 8pm to 6am each night.

Deadpool 2 filming signs (“DAISY”) were also spotted near the PNE last week by @pursuit23.

As more locations are spotted, they’ll be added to our Current Filming Locations Page as well as our Filming Locations Archive, so check back often for updates!

Deadpool 2 Cast

In addition to Vancouver’s own Ryan Reynolds, here’s a roundup of the rest of the cast announced so far, thanks in part to the film’s IMDb page:

Actor Role You may know them from Ryan Reynolds Wade Wilson/Deadpool Deadpool, The Proposal, Green Lantern Morena Baccarin Vanessa Deadpool, Homeland Zazie Beetz Domino Atlanta Josh Brolin Nathan Summers/Cable W., Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Leslie Uggams Blind Al Deadpool, Empire Jack Kesy Baywatch, The Strain Shioli Kutsuna Petaru dansu Brianna Hildebrand Negasonic Teenage Warhead Deadpool, First Girl I Loved Karan Soni Dopinder Deadpool, Ghostbusters Stefan Kapicic Colossus (voice) Deadpool, Big Miracle

Last but certainly not least, as always a big thank you to @lemon_buzz for originally breaking the news that Deadpool 2 filming would be happening in Vancouver. Filming is currently scheduled to continue until October 6th.

Deadpool 2 Teaser

In case you somehow missed this before, a short Deadpool 2 teaser was included at the end of Logan which hit theatres earlier this year. You can check out the hilarious clip that pokes fun at Superman/Clark Kent here:

Also Starting This Week

Misfits (Freeform TV Pilot) Cast: Ashleigh LaThrop (Sirens), Tre Hall (Rebel), Allie MacDonald (Orphan Black) and Jake Cannavale (Nurse Jackie) Filming until July 14th For more details about the Misfits TV pilot, check out our 2017 TV Pilot Roundup.

The Man in the High Castle – Season 3 (Amazon TV Series) Cast: William Forsythe, Michael Gaston, Rufus Sewell, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Alexa Davalos, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, Joel De La Fuente, Brennan Brown and Bella Heathcote Filming until November 28th

For a full list of what’s filming in Vancouver and British Columbia right now, check out our In Production page.

Wrapping Up This Week

Distorted (aka Distortion) (Feature) with Christina Ricci, John Cusack, Brendan Fletcher, Vicellous Shannon, Nicole Anthony, Oliver Rice and Gigi Jackman wraps up today

Engaging Father Christmas (Hallmark TV Movie) with Erin Krakow, Niall Matter and Aliyah O’Brien wraps up June 28th

The Sweetest Christmas (aka Sugar and Spice) (Hallmark TV Movie) with Lacey Chabert, Lea Coco, Jonathan Adams and Ava Grace Cooper wraps up June 30th

Garage Sale Mystery: Case of Murder (Hallmark TV Movie) with Lori Loughlin, Sara-Jane Redmond, Kevin O’Grady and Steve Bacic wraps up June 29th

At Home In Mitford (Hallmark TV Movie) with Andie MacDowell, Cameron Mathison, Nicholas Holmes, David Lewis, Ken Tremblett, Sarah Edmonson, Kehli O’Byrne and Chris Cope wraps up June 30th

Cocaine Godmother (Lifetime TV Movie) with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Spencer Borgeson, Dagan Nish, Jenny Pellicer, Raul Mendez, Jose Julian, Juan Pablo Espinosa and Warren Christie wraps up June 30th

If you see any of these productions, including the Deadpool 2 filming in Vancouver and British Columbia, be sure to let us know by tweeting us (@WhatsFilming) or via our Submit a Location page.

The post Deadpool 2 Filming Underway in Vancouver appeared first on What's Filming?.

[iamfereal]

Spring morning in nyc. Pullup

[sizzlingturtlegentlemen-blog]

Progress 04/18

New York City Parks:

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/attractions/best-nyc-parks

Spanish Harlem: Thomas Jefferson Park 

https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/thomas-jefferson-park

Soccer

Basketball

Run around the tracks

Playground for local kids

A recreation center

Afterschool programs/gym

Outdoor pool

Picnic tables lend well to barbecues

Lower East Side: Coleman Skatepark

http://newyorkcityskateparks.com/lesmanhattanbridge.html

Recently re-modeled

Skaters

The park features ledges, jumps, rails and a pyramid

If under 18 need parents permission

Chinatown: Columbus Park

https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/columbus-park-m015

https://www.yelp.com/biz/columbus-park-new-york

Mahjong

Tai Chi

Chinese Music playing

Washington Heights: Fort Tyron Park/ J. Hood Park

Upper East Side: Carl Schurz Park

Mayors Mansion

Harlem: St. Nicholas Park Roll

Midtown: Bryant Park

East Village: Tompkins Square Park

Manhattan: Central Park

Tourists

Cyclists

Runners

Upper West Side: Riverside Park

dog parks

Playgrounds

family friendly