PEACE ON WHEELS

 

A skateboarder in Kiener Plaza downtown. Boards came on the scene when I was in high school in the 1960s. My friends and I used to grab ours and head for the NY subway early Saturday mornings, hoping to find an empty first or last car. If we were in luck, we would try to slalom through the vertical poles while the train was moving. Lots of bruises but fortunately no lost teeth.                  

SKATER

I was wandering around Kiener Plaza downtown Sunday afternoon looking for something to shoot. It was gloomy and I didn't have an idea in my head. Then a group of young men with skateboards came by. This one hopped up on a stone wall about six feet high and a foot wide (just visible in the lower left), zoomed into a gap of three or four feet to the next section (not visible here), landed smoothy and then swooped off the end onto the sidewalk with aplomb. I was stunned and asked if I could photograph him doing it again. He was happy to oblige. I showed him some of the shots afterward and he gave me a fist bump. Made me feel cool.            

All-American Skater

For love of country and fodder for YouTube.

Boarders

I ran into a group of skateboarders downtown on a Sunday afternoon. They went from one building to another, wheeling off architectural features until the security guard chased them away. There are a few more of these shots. 

Skateboards go back further than people may realize. I had one in the mid 60s when I was in high school. My friends and I would find an empty car on the 7 train in Queens early on Saturday morning, then try to slalom among the grab bars while the train was moving. It could be bruising.                     

Airborne

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A sequence of shots from the new skateboard mini-park in The Grove. I've said that the photographer is more important than the camera but in this case the equipment was indispensable. My Canon has very good low light sensitivity, reasonably good fast shooting and a feature that changes the focus as you track a moving subject. That made these possible.

Busy day yesterday. Got some pooch pix at the annual Bark In The Park event, a loosely-organized dog party in Forest Park, pushed some paper at the office and attended opening night at Opera Theatre of St. Louis, a big deal around here. Unfortunately, the production of Carmen was disappointing in many ways. I'm waiting for Cosi Fan Tutte, one of my favorites.

Oh, and I found another Toynbee Tile downtown, the original kind. It's badly deteriorated so I won't show it here but it will be on Flickr later today. 

 

Balance Bar

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When I was walking around The Grove neighborhood last weekend, I discovered that a vacant lot on Manchester Avenue had been paved. Someone, maybe the city, had fenced it off and brought in some ramps and platforms, creating a skateboard park. This athletic young man jumped onto and slid across a steel bar. It made me remember seeing boarders sliding down bannister railings.

During high school, my friends and I sometimes went skateboarding in Central Park. (Yes, there were skateboards in the 60s!) We loved going early on a Saturday morning, looking for an empty first or last car on the Number 7 train from Queens to Manhattan. The idea was to slalom among the vertical hand poles while the train was moving. Utter folly. I'm not sure how I survived.