East Village | Quartersnacks

Construction on the Tompkins Pavement Is Set To Begin on September 1

Daily News June 26th, 2023 · 2:15 pm

Update — September 29: Construction is now set to begin on October 16.

Update — September 20: Construction is set to begin on October 2nd now.

Update – August 31: Construction is now set to begin in mid-November instead.

We reported on this back in September 2022 after Community Board 3 held a meeting announcing the approved changes to the Tompkins Square Park baseball diamond, but there is now a date on it.

As per a Parks Department source, the construction is set to begin on September 1, 2023, with the process expected to last three months: two for construction, and another for asphalt to cure.

A diagram of how the new version of the park is expected to look is below:

The Star Team — An Interview With Kyota Umeki

Features & Interviews May 31st, 2023 · 12:00 am · 7

📝 Intro + Interview by Adam Abada
📷 Photography by Ryu Kamata

We’ve all had the notion to print a funny phrase or doodle on a t-shirt and sell it to our friends. Some of us have even followed through with it. But how many of us have figured out how to get our own branded headphones manufactured before even reaching 21? Kyota Umeki has one such distinction. He’s also got a bunch of skate parts and a brand that’s about to open a store in the neighborhood he grew up in.

Farewell to the Triangle

Daily News October 12th, 2017 · 12:08 pm · 5

It has been observed that making it to the Houston Park bump is the bare minimum benchmark to feel proud of yourself for having left L.E.S. Park. The Triangle and Tompkins had a similar relationship.

It took two hours to convince your group of friends to leave T.F. and skate to the westside. One rolled his ankle, one went to meet up with his girlfriend, another is staying to #build with Slicky Boy. The survivors begin the push down E. 9th Street. Do they make it to the westside — er, do they make it past Third Avenue?

“How was the rest of the day, did you make it to the westside?”
“No. We got stuck at the Triangle, ______ was trying some stupid trick.”

Triangles were once an unshakeable part of the cultural landscape, but whoever is in charge of streets in the East Village feels otherwise, especially as we approach the great unknown of 2018. As of yesterday, The Triangle™ is no more. What this means for other three-sided skate spots across the world, e.g. the Miami triangle, the Trianeln train station in Malmö, etc. remains to be seen.

Spend time with your triangles while you can, because as always, ain’t none of this shit promised ♥

UPDATE: They rebuilt it today, but the bump looks pretty worthless, plus the fact it has the little pink sidewalk bumps in it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Full review coming 2018.

The T.F’s Final Beacon of Hope

Daily News January 12th, 2012 · 1:20 pm · 12

The dust has finally began to settle on the T.F. after the last two months’ worth of socio-political crises. Nearly all prominent East Village skateboard institutions were toppled, and much like Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a gigantic landmass has been left without a stable government. The only morsel of civilization is perhaps the most archaic symbol of civilized society there is — a wooden box with angle iron.

This post is an open call to all those who have not turned their back on Tompkins at this pivotal point in history. We have documented how it has achieved legacy status, and we will all still skate here even if there is a 50-foot diameter crater in the ground with ten district attorneys’ offices playing softball around it, but let us use this one remaining box as a building block to a greater future. We are already witnessing a miracle as it approaches two weeks of life without proper storage (on track to tie or break the blue flatbar’s record.)

Several ideas have been tossed around in an effort to prolong the box’s life and stability altogether. Most notably, there is an idea of offering a contract to nearby businesses to store the box during T.F. off-hours in exchange for advertising on its exterior (chalk panels would be affixed to the sides to display daily specials.) 9th Street Espresso (skaters love coffee), Mamani’s (skaters love food that only costs $1), San Loco (skaters love diarrhea), and Blind Barber (skaters love alcohol) are several names that have come up for discussion at high-level T.F. personnel meetings. The problem is actually getting people to return the box to the said establishment should an agreement be reached. Another idea has been appealing to the most prominent weed salesmen in the area to get on some Frank Lucas/Nino Brown shit, and give back to the community by furnishing the T.F. with new obstacles, and an adjacent shipping container for their safekeeping, in exchange for a bolstered public opinion of their otherwise frowned-upon industry.

Feel free to share any ideas below (and bring the box behind the tree, next to the hockey nets next time you’re done skating it for the time being.) Astronaut Status just dropped, so maybe the T.F. won’t ever matter again, since we’ll all be living on the moon by the end of the day.

End of an Era: Bodega Across From Tompkins Officially Closed

Daily News October 12th, 2011 · 3:25 pm · 18

Many know that “Closed For Renovations” is often code for “Closed Because the Landlord Raised the Rent to a Price Only a Multi-Million Dollar Chain Could Afford,” but Tompkins’ wishful thinking lead us to believe otherwise. The bodega across from Tompkins officially has a “Business For Sale” sign on its front window, after a month-and-a-half of leading its devout skateboard-riding consumer base to believe that it was merely undergoing a non-existant renovation.

So, we salute you, Avenue A Mini Mart, for most likely earning more money from skateboarders’ pockets than ABC and Autumn combined over the past ten years.

We salute you for selling quarter snacks when they were still a quarter, and allowing the expired ones with the old price tag to sit on your display late into 2004 when Little Debbie doubled the price.

We salute you for providing the sugar, tobacco, and alcohol that has inevitably heightened Tompkins’ collective risk for diabetes, lung cancer, and liver failure throughout these years.