Ten years in New York is a century anywhere else.
Ten years inside the asphalt baseball diamond at E. 9th Street and Avenue A is an eon or two.
In ten years, skateparks sprouted up all over the city. Autumn Skateshop closed. 7-11, Target and Starbucks opened. iPods became iPhones. Slicky Boy became Slicky Man. The city re-paved Avenue A, and they even had a sick joke about covering Tompkins’ holy ground with astro turf. You know how that went.
In less than three months, it will be 2020. Though you can argue about the arbitrary nature of bookending slices of culture by decades, there is no denying that over the course of our recurring “Five Favorite Parts” series, certain samplings of skateboarding have “defined” decades. In the 1990s, it was Gonz in Video Days, Sheffey in Soldier’s Story, and Guy in Mouse. In the 2000s, it was P.J. in Wonderful Horrible Life, Zered in Vicious Cycle, and Jake in Mind Field — correct, Mind Field DID NOT come out in the 2010s ;)
