I have this love for New York City… I think it’s the only place to be. And I love the beach, it’s a rare magical place you can really feel free. Beaches exist all over the world, but the New York City beaches are the best of them all. The fact that they’re so close to home, civilization, culture, friends, human energy, and all of my life pursuits, make them unique to me. You could drop me in some perfect, tropical, untouched beach in the middle of the pacific, and it would be desolate, inaccessible, and away from friends. It would be a nice escape, but not really part of the reality of my life.

This is the 1st half of my beach 2014 photos.

 

 

 

The beach was so beautiful around sunset this day. The water had a gorgeous, smooth, blue-purple metallic surface, I think due to lack of wind. After the sun set and the sky was dimming blue, the ocean and the sky blended together as if there wasn’t a horizon.

 

 

 

 

 

Danilo and I like to get a little weird, it’s very therapeutic.

 

 

 

He was building and climbing this stuff and it wouldn’t fall over. Danilo’s a magician.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since I love this beach so much, I have to interrupt the good times photos for this public service announcement.

 

I attended this protest because there’s a natural gas pipeline being built right under one of my most beloved places in the world, by a company with a poor safety and accident record – I mean, do any pipeline constructing companies have a good record?

 

 

We marched up into the on shore construction site in protest.

 

 

We made our point, and the park police kicked us out.

 

That’s Kevin Hayden riding a wave on a surf board.

 

 

This is Kevin Hagen riding a wave without a surf board. Hayden and Hagen are not the same person.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks like someone getting shot in the chest with a roman candle.

 

Bryan gets weird at the beach too, that’s how strong the magic is there.

 

 

 

 

The waves were really choppy and fun to ride on this night.

 

 

 

 

After it was totally dark, the waves would just hit you without a moment after the previous wave.

 

 

 

With a few exceptions, these are mostly photos of skaters not skating.

Kevin Tierney and Keith Denley at DQM, I heard they are closing.

 

Joe Bressler

 

Rob Harris filming a long manual line with Aaron Herrington, in the Bronx.

 

Joel Meinholz was throwing these skate events called Bum Rush. Most skate events in NYC in the last few years have been very corporate, commercial, and shitty, but Joel managed to throw some more genuine street skating events that you could actually go to and enjoy skating with people without logos plastered all over the place. You could say they had a more old-school feel, but it would only be an old-school feel because there haven’t been good skate events in a long time. He threw events in different cities, but this one was from the BQE, and the following black and white photos are from the monument spot by the Williamsburg Bridge, both in Brooklyn.

 

Pep Kim

 

Keith Denley – Nose Wheelie

 

5boro homies

 

Mark Nardelli – Slappy Bluntslide Pop-out.

 

Dylan Witkin doing one of those tail bomb drop things.

 

Mark Nardelli, Creative Director of 5boro Skateboards.

 

Kevin Tierney

 

Erik Ellington got a hot pocket from hucking himself down D7, and immediately found a rake to roll it out. Where do you find a rake in NYC?
A “hot pocket” is this weird tweak in the tendons on top of your ankle.

 

Colin Read made a roof skating segment for his video Tengu. I got to join them on a few missions.
This one is him and the crew getting ready to do some wallies and wheelies on a roof in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

 

The Japanese homie, Liu, and Colin Read, while Eby Ghafarian hops up from an adjacent roof.

 

A session on a roof in Midtown Manhattan. The photos from this roof were shot digitally.

 

Connor Kammerer – Bertleman Slide

 

 

 

Connor Kammerer and Eby Ghafarian checking out a cut Eby got falling on his hand on something trying to skate in the dark.
Shortly after this someone had called the police, and we had to hide out inside the building until it was safe to sneak away.

 

These are some views from the roof of the Grain Terminal in Red Hook, which we were not able to sneak away successfully, but the trespassing tickets were either cheap, or dismissed, I forget.

 

 

Colin Read, on a roof near the Williamsburg Bridge.

The actual skate photos from this series are in the 1st issue of Stoops Magazine.

 

Dan Zvereff and Joseph Delgado.

 

Willy Akers

 

Sylvester Eduardo

 

This is a photo Eby shot of me on one of the subway skating missions for Tengu. The film was expired, and most of photos from that night came out super dark like this.

 

Josh Stewart and Kevin Tierney.

 

Josh Stewart filming Dustin Eggeling, while a diner cook watches, in Tribeca.

 

Jerry Mraz is the man responsible for the majority of the renegade built spots in NYC. This is what it looks like when he’s building one of them.

 

 

Kosta, in focus, is the mastermind behind Quartersnacks, a local skate website. Next to him are Andrew Brown, Thando Beschta, (then Kosta), and Kevin Tierney.

 

Brendan Carroll dicking around with Dustin Eggeling…

 

 

… and Brian Delatorre.

 

This is Nestor Judkins frontside noseblunt sliding the median ledge in Harlem. At one point the street was paved and raised higher, so it’s a much smaller ledge than it used to be. I think that’s why the filmer wasn’t filming it.

 

This was such a beautiful day, a butterfly came out to see some skating on Houston St.

 

Christmas Eve in Midtown, Yonnie just tried to skate the CBS gap, but we were kicked out.
Taylor Nawrocki, Aaron Herrington, Brian Delatorre, Yonnie Cruz, Waylon Bone.