I was living in Ridgewood the last time I journeyed to Flushing Meadows to try switch kickflip body varial over the grate. My co-worker friend Tom Jacobi lived in Astoria and was down to film. I rode a Q58 bus to Flushing then skated through Corona Park to meet Tom at the unisphere fountain. The cold day was windy and I was wearing Sk-8 Hi’s. I kickflipped the grate but didn’t even come close to the switch flip body varial I had made the mission to do. I decided to return on a warmer day wearing more cushioned shoes. That was ten years ago.
In June 2022, I sprained my left knee. Only in the past six months have I really been able to resume skating in a challenging way. I had missed skating flatground the most while injured, so I spent this summer practicing switch flip body varials, along with nollie and fakie variations, at Lower Flat and Seward Park. As I prepared to leave New York last month, this switch flip body varial over the Flushing grate was my final piece of unfinished business.
Two Thursdays before my departure I want to skate Lower Flat, but find a soccer game occupying the paved pitch. Clark Hassler sees me on the adjacent block when he’s doing laundry and shares a joint he has rolled. I share my goal of switch flip body varial the grate and Clark says I should make sure to practice doing the trick over something. If I feel comfortable popping some height at speed, distance will be take care of itself. Doing tricks over the grate is just really fast flatground. I go link with Jason, who is with Genesis and a redhead filmer. We end up skating flat at a handball court where I spy a half-deflated basketball to utilize for height practice. Jason films the one I land uphill over the half-orb with a little tic-tac on my rollaway. I send the footage to Clark who says, “Flushing crushing!” Jason suggests I get a wider pair of trucks.
Claire and I are hosting our going-away party next Sunday and I want to stack this clip before then. I’ve been riding a Lucien Clarke Palace deck since I started skating harder again in the Spring and I can feel its prime has passed. Andrew Meredith mailed me some Less Than Local product a couple months ago thanks to my Mitchell Meuser Skate Part Review, and since Meredith did a fakie flip body varial into the Griffith Park bank, I decide to use a Less Than Local deck for my similar trick at Flushing. That Friday, I set up this Less Than Local “That’s an Idea” deck with the Independent trucks from Claire’s first complete.
Tyler Dingman invites me on a Sunday skatepark tour upstate with some of his mates. Since I won’t have another chance to do such a thing again soon, I accept. Sunday morning I ride the train to East Broadway, where Kyle Wilson sees me and says hello on my way to link with Tyler at his Two Bridges apartment, where I meet the dudes Dean and Taylor who are accompanying us, and Benson Ellis, who isn’t. We first drive to Mount Vernon Park, which is concrete and gnarly, where Watermelon Alex-affiliated locals are hosting a skate jam. A skater in a Limosine hoodie tells us he tried cocaine for the first time last night when he drove to Brooklyn to attend a Pratt party, stayed up all night, now is driving back home stopping at the skateparks on the way, seemingly to appreciate some purity in the world. He suggests we meet him at the nearby New Rochelle park, which is faded metal / plastic pre-fab with a marquee hip that I decide to switch flip body varial, which Tyler films, which gives me good confidence that I’m ready to go on my new board and trucks at Flushing this coming week.
Finding someone to go to Flushing with me is its own endeavor. SP says he might be able to get Kyle Wilson and Austin to come on Thursday and I like the sound of that.
On Wednesday, I go to meet Shawn at Seward Park to practice. I arrive before he does and am sitting on our usual bench at the top of the racquetball courts. A boy approaches wearing all black with Yeezy slides and asks if he can borrow my board. I say sure and nudge it his way. He rides down the courts regular-stance and yells to some people walking by so they can see that he’s cruising. He pushes back up toward me, then takes a couple bigger loops around the court before trying pop shove-its for a bit. I see him examining the fresh Less Than Local deck with three “I’m crying because I love skateboarding so much” stickers lined beneath the Sisyphean graphic. He presses down on the wheels with his hands to feel the trucks shift. When Shawn arrives, the boy hands back my board and gives us pounds before he leaves.
Shawn and I have been talking for a few minutes when the boy returns and asks if he can use my board again. “Sure, land that pop shove.” He skates a couple loops, then stands near us texting for a few. I watch him ride down to the end of the two courts, where I see him hug the board to his chest and take off running down toward the library. “Yo, that dude’s boosting my board!”
Since I don’t have my board, I can’t give chase as fast as Shawn, who skates off after him as I gather my things. My brother telephones when I’m reaching East Broadway, where I can’t see Shawn or the boy down three possible routes. I tell my brother I’ll call him back. I hear urethane then see Shawn pushing toward me shaking his head. He and the boy made eye contact from across the street right here while the boy was trying to go into those school doors, then he ducked down the block where there’s like four smoke shops in a row down sets of stairs. A tough looking guy noticed something was going down and asked if Shawn needed help, but Shawn had seen how the boy was admiring the board he had run off with and didn’t want to draw this boy or himself into further possible conflict, so said no and let him go. The boy already obviously treasures the board, plus Shawn also has enough spare parts at his apartment that he helps me assemble a full new Palace complete a few minutes later. He only has four pairs of nuts and bolts, though, so I put two diagonal pairs on each truck then we go to Labor to borrow a razor blade and finish gripping my new complete. I can’t help thinking that this personalized board set up by noted Flushing ripper Shawn Powers is an ever better set-up than what that boy had stolen from me.
I’m heading back to Park Slope with my mind on tomorrow, when the train stops at Jay Street and says it’s being held in the station as the minutes add up. I decide to hop out and return my brother’s call, then skate Borough Hall to practice switch flip body varials on this new set-up. A skater sees me land one. “Disco flip?” “Switch.” “Damn, dope.” “Yeah man. I’m going to Flushing tomorrow to do one over the grate so need to get them dialed.” “You got that.” I’m inclined to agree, as I land switch flip body varials most tries with more and more speed. Shawn said these wide 52mm Palace x Spitfire wheels ride like bigger wheels that aren't as thick, which feels true. I measure the Borough Hall grate gap, which seems on the small side at six of my feet lengths. I don’t bother doing the trick over this gap to save my effort, but the confidence I feel looking at it feels good.
Rather than re-board a train for the rest of my ride to Park Slope, I decide to skate the couple miles on this beautiful day. I head along Brooklyn’s Third Avenue then make my way up to the 5th and 5th skatepark, “Slope Park.” I recognize a number of the locals as I practice more switch flip body varials on the park’s downhill. During one attempt, I lose a bolt, so my front truck, that had been my back truck when I was goofy-stance transit skating two miles through Brooklyn, swings from one loose attachment.
At this point, the locals rally as three of them take a single nut and bolt from each of their own set-ups so that my board can have three secure bolts on each truck. One of them has used the same hardware since he got his first complete five years ago and I’m honored to have such seasoned pieces holding me tight as the locals marvel at the freshness of my new Palace complete. I tell how Shawn gave me this after mine got jacked and they all sing Shawn’s praises, then one asks why he didn’t give me more hardware. I say the four pairs were all Shawn had, but that he suggested fewer bolts would mean less weight on my board. Some of the skaters scoff to dismiss this small weight difference, while another says that Shawn is the pro so he might be the one to know. I give out Skate Part Reviews and some “I’m crying because I love skateboarding so much” stickers my girlfriend makes to thank them as they wish me well with my Flushing mission and our move to Utah.
That Thursday, Shawn says Austin and Kyle have other plans, so I try to enlist someone else to accompany me without success as the day passes. After dark I take the train to East Broadway to chill with Jason. He had been working all day and didn't want to trek to Flushing that night. I take a selfie at Mirror Deli, then we go chill on the Allen Street promenade. Griffin Gass and some others are staying at the Allen Street Hotel so we say what’s up to them. They are talking about where they should skate tomorrow and I suggest Flushing. They say they were already there all day today, which makes me wonder if I should have just gone solo and hoped for the best. I check my phone and see Andrew Carter hit me up asking where we’re at, so I tell him and he shows up to kick it with us. I ask Andrew if he wants to go to Flushing tomorrow to film me and he says he’s down.
I wake up on Friday and the forecast looks great. Andrew and I plan to meet at Labor at 4pm. I ride the train in to East Broadway, listening to 22Gz “King of New York” on repeat. Out in front of Labor I see Kyle Wilson, Patrick O’Mara and Seven Strong chilling on the trunk of a car while Kader and Gary Rogers stand to form their circle. I say whats’s up to Kyle, who heard about my board heist from Shawn, and introduce myself to the rest of the dudes. I tell Gary how much I enjoy SkateLine and give him a copy of Karim’s Skate Part Review. I say I’m going to Flushing to switch flip body varial the grate. They say I’ve got it, then Kader gives me a handshake as Andrew pulls up and we dip to the train.
People are finishing work at this time on a Friday, so Andrew and I stand on both crowded trains out to Flushing, then ride down the broad embankment at the Mets-Willets Point stop on through the park. The unisphere isn’t very crowded and the weather is ideal. There’s a crew of Spanish-speaking skaters who seem to be on vacation, with their best friend going for pop shove crooked grind on the step-up ledge as one films and the other two watch.
My back wheels clip the grate on my first ollie attempt. I start going faster and land ten ollies over the grate in a row back and forth, then decide I’m ready to start these switch flip body varials. I face the globe as I approach. The first switch flip I throw out clears the grate and I look at Andrew to share my nodding, confident feeling.
Boys on bicycles riding around the fountain in circles want to be in the footage and sometimes are hard to avoid as I grow closer and closer over the next 90 minutes. I reopen the scabs on my back. I do some tumbles to vaults where I feel like NaKel. I take off my Ralph Lauren windowpane button-up shirt and Supreme cap, so I’m wearing Ralph Lauren x New Balances, black Pleats Please pants I got from my girlfriend who got them from her brother, and a dark green Polo tee with a navy pony. I stick a couple but lose my balance. I land with one foot on one.
With sunset on the horizon, two other skaters appear at the unisphere. They’re both sort of going for half-cab front noseslides on the ledges as they warm up, while Andrew is sitting on the grate where its wide part over the ledge gap funnels down to its narrower flat gap so his back is to these dudes. I can’t really tell how they’re going to fit into the flow of the spot and something about their presence makes me want to show what I’m doing here, so I take a lot of fast switch pushes then pop a switch flip body varial and next thing I know I’m hanging onto my rollaway passing one of the new arrivals who ducks beside an orange barrier to make space for my successful passage.
I pop a shove-it and cruise back around to Andrew. We watch the footage and I can’t really believe I landed it. I want to do another one to be sure, as this skater who I rolled away past starts going for switch 360 flip over the grate. I introduce myself and his name is Leo. We both toss twenty tries of our tricks. He comes close to landing a few switch tres, then asks me why I’m still trying my trick. I say I came all this way, I’m feeling good and wonder if I can do a better one, but then Leo and his filmer leave and the Spanish-speaking crew is preparing to heading out. I shoot a photo of all of them in front of the unisphere then roll back and tell Andrew I’m happy. In the meantime, BMX bikers have shown up and are asserting their dominion over the grate space as a dancing group begins their exercises in my approach area, so I got my clip in the window when I could. Andrew and I skate to Main Street and go to a meat place.
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I watched Kalman Ocheltree’s new part with pleasure on YouTube over the holiday weekend, then autoplay brought this “ab” video up next. You can see Kalman in the screen grab perched atop the Verizon Bank ready to do his drop in to ollie over the two lowers rows of nodules:
For starters, Nico Marti’s camera tilts up showing red brick Confucius Plaza behind the Hallowell marble of Manhattan Bridge’s base arch and colonnade, then turns down to the crew of skaters with bicycles posted in Forsyth Park above the double set where the bicycle lane from Brooklyn turns onto Canal Street, as one smiling seated skater in a white t-shirt that says “I ♡ My Travel Agent” shows his phone screen, which displays a photograph of Alan Bell shot from his shoulders up with an American Spirit dangling from his lips, to Nico. “Film this.” Nico chuckles while he zooms in on the portrait ready to be posted to this skater’s instagram story, then pans up a pair of black and white windowpane-plaid carpenter shorts to show 23-year-old Alan himself, standing amidst seated and perched partners in front of his black track bicycle with his backpack hanging from the handlebars and his fingers interlaced across his chest in a black zip-up hoodie with the hood down over a brown t-shirt, smiling or smirking in side-eye as the acknowledged center of attention.
In Philadelphia, Temple University’s Liacourse Walk South is the institution’s largest landscape project to date, one that “completes the main internal north/south pedestrian corridor for this urban campus. The project, nicknamed ‘The Cut,’ forms a new southern gateway for the university and a significant gathering place for Temple’s students, faculty, administration, and visitors.” The designers describe this promenade as one where “pass through becomes theater,” albeit a display circumscribed by hundreds of skatestoppers. Forced to improvise around fortified benches on a sunny day, Alan throws down regular-stance atop a long wooden platform bench wearing an unzipped black hoodie, Frog Classic Graphic shirt and khakis. As the piano on Wee’s track “Aeroplane (Reprise)” strikes its initial keys, Alan takes three pushes and situates himself passing camera vantage, then drops onto a fifteen-foot backside tailslide along the inside of this bench planter over yellow and white planted petunias to pop up and out beyond the two-foot perpendicular bench end to fakie. The clip cuts at the cusp of Alan’s pop-out with sonic twinkle, then a second slo-mo angle shows his back tailslide again, now from the far-side landing, where his big dismount pop to fakie still leads to one wheel clipping the edge of the bench on his way down. This strike doesn’t stop Alan from his fakie landing in black Frog / Vans old skools with a strip cut into his grip above the back bolts showing a turquoise top ply. Differing background actors between the two clips indicate that the first shown back tailslide was not the make, as this clean while sketchy rollaway leads to some spectator student applause and Alan, with his patchy beard and mouth open to absorb the body high, takes a couple switch pushes then gives his temples a massage while a piano resumes and rousing synthesizer heightens his fortunate feeling floating past fountain streams ringed by skatestoppers before he pivot swivels around to regs as clip cuts.
Across from Radio City Music Hall, filmer Jack Eddy zooms in on fallen yellow ailanthus leaves freckling dark granite ground, then breezes ascendantly along with Alan’s passage on white wheels, in green Vans, navy Dickies and fresh white tee as he pop and locks into back tailslide up a black Rockefeller Center ledge then slings a kickflip out to fakie showing the big Late Nite Stars sticker on his deck catching his flick neck-high to a background civilian wearing bumblebee Dunks before rollaway carve and a flatground switch front shove, which we can tell he lands since his upper body continues moving beyond the corner of the ledge that now blocks our view of his lower half. One of the crew says “Woo!” as another confirms “Yooohohoo,” trickling into laughter while Alan might be popping a fakie flip as the camera drops, clip cuts and music continues bellowing swell.
Since the concrete court and paths were repaved, Ridgewood’s curved white Evergreen Park ledge has been getting a healthy share of recent coverage from Dr. Franco amongst others, where Alan noseslides through the concave then lifts an Ace truck up into the briefest of crooked grinds before continuing his pivot into backside revert down to the ground wearing a blue Stunt Clothing headphones tee, long khaki shorts held up by a double grommet canvas web belt, white crew socks and black Vans with black paint over their white rubber side strips à la Jerry Hsu.
At Washington Square Park on a summer day, a covid-masked viewer lurks behind the chain in the grass beyond the four-stair stage for his prime view of Alan in a grey Frog graphic tee, black jean shorts, black socks and blackout old skools throwing down to pop a 360 flip over the four stairs plus the large planter at its base and carving out of his rollaway slightly on the nose as a throaty yell emerges from one particular viewer and general sounds of appreciation echo through the park while Alan appears potentially unconvinced during eye contact with camera, then clip cuts to a face shot of Titus Isaac White wearing a gold Telfar earring with his hands on his beanied head while Alan reclines on a teal folding chair in the park grass with his legs propped up on the black welded wire fencing.
Across the street from Brooklyn Academy of Music at Betty Carter Park in slo-mo, Alan rides past one concrete egg to ollie upon the next longer, flatter egg, from which he backside flips onto a further egg for lily pad landing to switch ride-off in longneck Vans and brown cut-off shorts on a green Frog deck under tree canopy.
A view of the brick ConEd pyramid bank shifts back and left when Alan passes the screen showing sweat soaking the back of his airbrushed white tee above khakis and Half-Cabs with a beaded bracelet on his left wrist, heading toward the bank to indented bench Fred Gall made famous for back tailslide across then he pops front shove out and into the far bank. Some friends cheer and clap as Alan continues his ride toward the street where he pops an unsuccessful pressure flip.
Through the heart of Bushwick at Mambo Bar, Alan hops into switch frontside nose manual along the platform ledge and dismounts with a fakie varial flip into the cellar door wearing navy Half-Cabs, navy shorts and a navy Stunt tee with hand plant graphic on his back into the street where he switch power slides to avoid an idling vehicle.
Isaac White sits eating a sandwich in the glass-enclosed bus stop beside the Verizon Banks as Nico’s slow-motion pan continues to catch Alan riding down the sidewalk then ollieing up above the bank’s lowest level of skatestoppers in a black tee, red Dickie’s shorts, white Nike socks and black Half-Cabs, where he pops a nollie flip above the middle row of bumps and lands in a backside rainbow manual across two panels of the upper bank beneath blue sweatshirted Kalman before he pops down over the middle bumps for a brief ride on the lower section then lifts over the bottom bumps for his drop to sidewalk onto Lorimer Street’s downhill. He continues to scoop a sunlit impossible that prompts slow-motion laughter at his prowess as a woman crosses the street standing on an e-scooter.
An encircled white number 11 on the front of his red tee shirt commemorates Yao Ming’s February 3, 2017 jersey retirement as a Houston Rocket, worn as Alan pushes away from Park Avenue on the northeast side of 25th Street wearing a forward-facing denim ballcap with a bedazzled brim and bedazzled QUEEN text beneath a bedazzled crown icon for this backside ollie upon the bank to stairs to bank that Alex Olson frontside ollied in Lurkers 2 where here now Alan over-rotates his varial flip over the stairs to align with the far-side bankroll down on black wheels, black painted shoe soles, blue jeans worn through in the tailbone as he rolls across the street past a yellow cab then penguin walks and knocks his wheels against a green outdoor dining partition. “Oh my god,” someone declares. After this Heatwave a friend comes over for a hug when Johnny Wilder Jr. begins singing a cappella “In the Garden” from his album “My Goal” of “the joy (the joy) that we share (we share)” during Alan’s embrace with another friend in a black denim jacket then the homie who had been waiting on the corner takes his afterglow go at an ollie up to bluntslide across the top step, but isn’t able to pop in to regular down the bank.
Distant sirens howl and automobile traffic moves cautiously “as we (as we) tarry there (tarry there)” in Dumbo alongside the Manhattan Bridge, where Nico’s vantage rests baritone “ba-doo-bum” on the thin red brick chute atop the newly build dark brick wall into which Andrew Wilson ollied from the top of the wall in Max Palmer’s Spitfire part, before “none other” than Alan emerges from the upper courtyard in the frame’s top right carving past a wood bench wearing a tan uncuffed beanie, black hoodie, blue jeans and black Half-Cabs to frontside ollie from the courtyard off the side of the top wooden block over landscaping grass to land onto this thin banked brick strip. “There’s no other,” as Alan absorbs the obtuse pinch where the bank levels out and his front Ace truck scrapes across brick as he rides off the side to sidewalk down to bike lane across an empty lane of Jay Street before carving back to pop up the curb again, on down the block and around the corner, where a weathered sticker on the back of the yellow crosswalk sign no longer declares “Messiah is here,” out of frame. Shown again in slow motion, “(bum bum ba dum,) there’s no other that has ever known.”
When Alan approaches the trick shown for the third time in plain air speed, his ollie lands with his trucks caught on the inside top of the brick chute as his body continues down the drop to a jarring shoulder check on the sidewalk six feet down. Alan gasps as screen fades to black then Late Nite Stars logo hits overbleeding borders. “I come to the garden alone.”
This 3:03 part contains ten clips, which suggests a restraint that confidence allows. In his recent Skate Jawn interview, Alan discusses how he is much more selective with the footage he releases than with his music published as the artist “48”. I think of when Dave Morales posted his 2011 footage tape to Alex Olson’s Facebook, as Alan’s part hits both similarly striving and comfortable in its own orbit. Traces of Tyson Peterson, Zach Allen, Sean Sheffey and Steve Bailey appear throughout, with Alan’s thrifted style well-complimenting his DIY milieu of Frog and Late Nite Stars, outsider artists, from Midland, Texas in his case, who have been shoegazing at the Big Apple honing their plans. This part will likely be Alan’s last coverage wearing Vans, as he appears slotted on the new Asics team behind Chase Walker’s lens. Any video part that released on 4/20 and ends with a slam is worth a watch, while Alan shows that quality outweighs quantity in this inspiring document that spring-loads his star and rewards this reviewing.