📷 Photo via @falconbowse
After some loose intel, and now with photo confirmation, we can report that the JFK Banks at Kennedy Airport Terminal 6 are in the midst of getting demolished, as part of a wider $4.2 billion renovation of the terminal.
The JFK Banks have the distinction of being one of the earliest New York skate spots to appear in a widely-circulated skate video — in the era when there were like, yaknow, two videos a year ;)
They were first introduced to the world via Mike Vallely’s Rubbish Heap part in 1989. And unlike the Brooklyn Banks (obviously the most famous New York spot through any era of street skating), or the Harlem Banks that appeared in Matt Hensley’s Full Power Trip section in 1990 (and not much else after because they were destroyed), the JFK Banks were a consistent go throughout the past three decades of skateboarding — assuming you didn’t get booted.
The spot was a special bonus for those doing the good deed of picking up their friends after a flight, or a longshot mission when you’re driving around deep Queens spots and come to the realization that you’re not too far from the airport. It avoided getting blown out due to the horrible inconvenience it was to get there. Like, who the fuck wants to go to JFK when you don’t absolutely have to?
There aren’t many places — let alone skate spots — still around that look like they did in the 1980s, and now, there’s one less.
Andrew Wilson in brick ass weather skating to that song “im flexin cocaina”
New York giveth and New York taketh away.