📝 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.
Suciu at the Yellow Rail • Photo by Greg Navarro 📷
“The heelflip to kickflip ratio is also an impressively well-balanced 9:10.” 4-Ply Mag crunched the numbers on Tyshawn’s “General” part. (on the off chance that you’re smarter than everyone else and don’t have Instagram, Thrasher also dropped an addendum Insta part.)
If the front skatepark section of the B.Q.E-adjacent park is Zered Park, then the back, basketball court street section is definitely Leo Park, as evidenced by the new Leo Baker Spitfire part.
Tompkins Square Park — like all other skate spots, institutions, and thinktanks — is subject to the winds of time and generational shifts. The Tompkins of today is a different ecosystem of personality and obstacles than even the one that stood on the original Save Tompkins Day in 2019.
…much like that one is different from the immediate post-Autumn days when the lifespan of a box or rail would rarely exceed 72 hours.
…and that one was different from the post-9/11 years when it first became a buzzing central hub that exceeded the popularity of any traditional street spot.
…and that one was different from the Skate NYC days depicted in endlessly reposted nineties lore.
A billboard above Popeye’s Ledge. A dream come true 🙂🙃🙂🙃🙂
Kind of knew this day was only a matter of time given how bad the cracks are getting. Community Board 3 held a meeting that laid out a plan for repaving Tompkins next summer. Though it is not a hard date just yet, it looks like the court we all skate will be closed for up to three months while the asphalt cures. Doesn’t seem like they are pulling any silly shit like they did with the turf in 2019. (But they are ending softball permits!) Shout out to the lady who pulled up to the meeting like, “How have you gone talking this long without mentioning the skaters?”
The official Thrasher recap is sure to drop mid-week like it does every time, but people on YouTube already compiled an eight-minute 2022 Dime Glory Challenge best-of.
