As skate tourism has grown and grown and grown, New York spots have snowballed in brand recognition. Run down the best tricks at the city’s marquee spots, and two of them will be from some random Volcom summer edit. A new bump-to-bar pop ups, and you can almost watch its NBD list get checked off in real-time on Instagram.
The Soldiers and Sailors Monument on 89th Street and Riverside Drive is the exact opposite. It is not the type of spot a visiting team stops by on its east coast tour. It is a local staple — it’s as local as the nondescript corner store in your neighborhood that has deceptively great sandwiches and the grill still on late at night. The Monument is mainly skated by people who live in that neighborhood, with the occasional visit from a friend. It’s the type of spot that you could set a low bar for sneaking a session between getting home from work, and the sun setting in 30 minutes, but end up tricking yourself into having more fun than you would at a proper skatepark.
Greg Navarro and Ted Barrow‘s “Upper West Side Curb Club” is a nineteen-minute portrait of the spot. While we’ve grown accustomed to one-spot projects veering towards places that ooze with mythology, this one celebrates the opposite: one straight curb, two curved ones, and two ledges on profoundly shitty ground, which the video’s sound-design does a great job of emphasizing.
Having a great curb in your neighborhood is a feature just like proximity to the train or good restaurants is. “Upper West Side Curb Club” reminds us to appreciate the imperfect little things, and the micro-scenes that they’re capable of creating ❤
“the nondescript corner store in your neighborhood that has deceptively great sandwiches and the grill still on late at night.”
this is so specific and if it didn’t make anyone reading it think of their local then you need to move asap. you deserve better.
Thank you for this beautiful article about my friends and I. I’ve never made a skate video before, this feed back really warms my heart. Thank you and the New York City skate community for making this possible. My wildest skate dreams came true!
Greg Navarro
beautiful video, loved the suicide hill section. Something about ‘local lore’ when discussing spots is so captivating, just knowing the tribal knowledge is getting passed on from skater to skater
Nice piece, good music, well done! Condolences on mom.
Great video. Love the vision.
How did I not know I live 7 blocks from this waxy utopia.
This got me really hyped to skate. Thank you!
Thrasher homepage is overwhelming. Cosign and extra words on here goes a long way. Would have missed this otherwise.
Then again, I became a more passive observor of skateboarding once trunk boys became a thing.
There’s a few good hills to bomb in Riverside Park.
I miss those blue ramps tho.
Ride bigger than your normal skate park wheels. 54mm to 60mm and soft wheels 98a = no more shitty ground excuses at any east coast street spot.
This was so good and ticked so many boxes. It’s a fantastic reminder that skateboarding is so many different things to so many different people.
so cool to see this side of skating still thrives! \m/