Tompkins Square Park Archives - Page 2 of 24

What Happened to the Tompkins Vert Wall? — A Brief Franco Interview

Features & Interviews July 22nd, 2026 · 12:00 am

📝 Intro + Interview by Greg Navarro
📷 Photography by Orlando Asson & Franco

Previously on the #trendwatch, we cataloged the Tompkins Tetris phenomenon that has been taking hold of the T.F. this year. Born from this cultural movement was a vert wall on the west side of the Tompkins fence, which many of you likely know as the Tompkins Hell Ride™.

Just when the excitement of the new obstacle was at its peak following the Jenkem Block Party two weekends back, the vert wall vanished overnight. We had no other choice than to call Franco, the vert wall’s principal architect, to better understand where and when this Hell Ride™ would continue.

Sports Are Fleeting, Hell Rides Are Eternal

Daily News July 20th, 2026 · 12:00 am

Jake Keenan was the victim of a horrific act of violence on July 4th, and was hospitalized for the injuries he sustained as a result. If you have the means, please donate to Jake’s family’s GoFundMe to assist with medical costs. Anything helps ❤️

We are hosting a wallride jam with Adidas at Blue Park tomorrow, Tuesday, July 21 @ 5 P.M. until sundown. Cash for tricks 💰 A handful of Adi riders. Same vibe as the long ledge jam, but yaknow …on a wall. Inspired by the long-knobbed Graham & Grand spot a few blocks away.

Late Nite Stars Makes A Tompkins Obstacle & A New Video

Daily News May 25th, 2026 · 12:57 pm

What is skateboarding but a long-winded way to worship architectural banalities?

Among this worship, the highest exaltation might be recreating a banality that you found on the other side of the planet in your own backyard. The Late Nite Stars crew was so enamored with this — um, mellow bank with parallel round rails fixed into it — that the handful of clips on it in their Asia tour video for Asics was not enough. Assuming the original spot was made in effort to knob the bank itself, it’s pretty funny that their skatestopping efforts yielded a spot so unique that it is being reproduced in New York. Now everyone can feel the bliss LNS felt under that Tokyo bridge, because they’re dropping it off at Tompkins later today once the rain dries up.

#TRENDWATCH2026 x #TFREPORT: Tompkins Tetris

Daily News May 18th, 2026 · 5:00 pm · 1

📷 via Greg Navarro, Jerry Mraz & Steve R.

It has been a little over a month since a city-approved granite ledge was dropped off at Tompkins. This is, by all objective measures, the most perfect Tompkins obstacle in the history of skateboarding at Tompkins. The marble delivery guy said it weighed 8,000 pounds. It was rumored to cost roughly what a used 2018 Honda Civic would run you today. Nike SB paid for it; it wasn’t heisted from a quarry by a granite Robin Hood. It is the sort of obstacle we travel and play mind games with security just to land ten to fifteen minutes of bliss with. And it was at Tompkins! It was never leaving! We don’t get kicked out of it!

Skateboarders had, in many ways, won.

The Good, The Bad & The Knicks

Daily News April 27th, 2026 · 12:00 am

QS goods arriving to skateshops now. Arriving internationally next week. Available via our webstore next Monday, May 4th. Photo via Laaaaabor ❤️

J.P. Blair‘s next video, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT (sounds like a Drake album, tbh), premieres at Cinema Village on May 1, with showings at 8 + 8:45 P.M. Flyer here. 22 E. 12th Street. Not to be confused with Village East, also on E. 12th Street, but further east.

“STAGEDIVE420” is a really sick all-NYC montage featuring a lot of homies and some pro homies by Daniel Star. Gabriel Fortunato’s two pole-jam tricks were beautiful.

Our friend and longtime staple of the Duplex universe, Dan Lundy, has a new five-minute Florida edit featuring Andrew Wilson, some wild Joel Minholz footage, the Andrew crew, and a bearded Pedro Delfino somehow not snapping his board on that final clip.