The Old School Crew
Oh man, I’m old. This is how and when I first started skating. Hanging around with a crew of grade school kids cursing around on plastic boards with loose bearings. Good times. Nobody worried about whether they were doing a trick correctly or if they had bad style. Besides, how much style does a tic-tack take? I found these 70’s photos in some clickbait article. The mentioned that the photographer Anthony Catalano had passed, but they didn’t link to the original source so I’m not going to bother to credit them. There are a ton of photos taken in Brooklyn in the mid to late 70’s, and only a few of them feature skateboarders but they are a great glimpse into the past.
I remember those days well. High speed death wobble. Boards stopping on a pebble as the rider sailed through the air… or ended up running so hard your heels hit your ass. We used to team up and sit on our boards to form a catamaran… often it didn’t end well .. but aside from scuffs and bruises no one broke any bones. My brother and I got our first boards for Easter in 1976..