← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
How 1990s NYC Skateboarding Culture Birthed 'Supreme'
00:30:07
In the 80s and 90s, New York City's skateboarding scene was wild and gritty, and seemingly unable to be commercialized.
Loading summary
Transcript66 lines
- [00:00]
Progressive Insurance
All of it is supported by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name youe Price Tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [00:28]
Alison Stewart
This is all of it on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Coming up on the show tomorrow, July 10th marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Scopes trial, which centered on whether or not evolution could be taught in public schools. We'll talk about the legacy of this monumental case and its relevance to today with Brenda Wineapple, author of the book Keeping the God Democracy and the Trial that Riveted a Nation that's in the Future. Get this hour started with some history that's both more recent and closer to home. My guest is director Josh swade. His new 30 for 30 documentary, Empire Skate, tells the origin story of a group of kids who turned the streets of New York into their personal skate park. It started out as a tribe with its own rules and rights. It had roots in the 80s when skate shops were just small, more like clubhouses than stores. By the 90s, these kids were hanging out Lafayette street working at a one of a kind shop called Supreme. This was before supreme was a global fashion giant with lines around the block. This was when the shop had a reputation for being hostile to customers. Let's say you didn't want to shop there unless you had street cred or were giving the employees a 30% under the table kickback. Using archival footage, Suede captures the attitude that was unapologetically New York City. As skateboarding moved from underground, the streets gained mainstream acceptance. Brands like supreme groove from a local skate shop into a fashion icon, pushing streetwear into the spotlight. Listeners, we want to hear about some of your memories of New York City skate scene through the 1980s and the 1990s. Which shop you hung out at, the spots you skated are the people who defined the scene for you. Call us at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. Or you can let us know via social media. LLNYC. You can watch Empire Skate now on Disney and ESPN and Hulu. Josh Wade joins me now. Hey, Josh.
- [02:37]
Josh Swade
Hey, how are you?
- [02:38]
Alison Stewart
I'm doing well. First of all, do you skateboard?
- [02:41]
Josh Swade
Yes, of course.
- [02:43]
Alison Stewart
I have to imagine you'd have to skateboard. When did you start?
- [02:46]
Josh Swade
When I was about 10 years old.
- [02:49]
Alison Stewart
And what did you think of skateboarding when you started.
- [02:52]
Josh Swade
Well, you know, skating is magical. I mean, it sucks you into. Not just riding down the street on a plank and four wheels, but it sucks you into a culture. And it kind of teaches you how to dress and how to communicate with. With other skaters. And it kind of changes the way you see the world and it just becomes a big part of your identity. And that. That's never left me.
- [03:19]
Alison Stewart
What did you learn about the history of New York skateboarding? That really flew in the face of common knowledge.
- [03:26]
Josh Swade
I mean, it just kind of, you know, doubled down on this idea that these kids in this city didn't have space and they didn't have what, you know, they had in Southern California, which was really forever the. The origin, the center point, the ground zero for skateboarding. So they had to be improvisational, but also have a lot of courage because, you know, they were doing things in the street that took a lot of just fearlessness. And so for a New York brand of skate to evolve over time, you know, meant that these were kids that were standing on the shoulders of other kids who were attacking the pavement and the curbs and a park bench and a ledge in ways that was just dangerous and very much to the spirit and attitude of New York City.
- [04:28]
Alison Stewart
What was the first seed of the film for you?
- [04:33]
Josh Swade
For me, you know, being adjacent to, you know, this culture in the 90s downtown, I just thought there was an unbelievable story to tell about these kids in their skate shop. And I also really love the idea of pitching this to a brand like ESPN specifically, you know, the. They're kind of iconic 30 for 30 label because it had such a big and larger, you know, cultural touch point given how big supreme has gotten. And it felt like a really cool different way for 30 for 30 to do a documentary, like an, like a very non obvious, you know, 30 for 30 film. Because it's not baseball, it's not basketball, it's not football. And to their credit, they really saw the vision right away and got behind it.
- [05:29]
Alison Stewart
When did you know which way the.
- [05:32]
Unknown Host
Story was going to go, that it was going to wind up at Supreme?
- [05:38]
Josh Swade
You know, very early on, you know, that was just sort of like the meeting place in the clubhouse for these guys and, you know, where they got together and decided where to go skate and just where they came back to after a hard day of skating and just. It was home. So if this place is home, that becomes kind of like the, you know, the, the hook, you know, the, the narrative through line. The place from which this Culture builds. And so really, really early on, we discovered that there was no way to tell this story without the shop.
- [06:16]
Unknown Host
My guest is director Josh Schwaid. We're discussing his documentary Empire Skate, about the group of kids who helped define New York City skate culture. You can watch it now on Disney, ESPN and Hulu, and we want to hear from you listeners. Do you have memories of the New York City skate scene from the 80s and the 90s? Give us a call. 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. One of the things that makes this document so worth watching is all of the archival footage. Where did this archival footage come from?
- [06:55]
Josh Swade
Yeah, I mean, look, it's, it's lucky and fortunate for someone who's trying to make a film because skaters in a lot of ways were trailblazers. They were people that had cameras, consumer, you know, the sort of camera you could walk into, like, say, a Best Buy or, you know, New Yorkers will certainly remember the Wiz back in the day and spend a few hundred bucks and get a camera and then follow your friends around as they try and as they try and do their tricks. But then the beauty of it is those cameras oftentimes stay on past the day of skateboarding. They stay on, you know, when they're hanging out, when they're, you know, having their downtime. And so it gives you just like this richness in this gold mine of a time and a place that, you know, really speaks to skaters in particular because they had cameras. They all wanted to capture their tricks on cameras. So there's just a kind of too much of this footage that exists. And it's, it's so fortunate we have it all.
- [08:03]
Unknown Host
When you think about it, they were the original content creators.
- [08:08]
Josh Swade
That's right. That's right. They were ahead of their time and, you know, they were, they were filming everything.
- [08:15]
Unknown Host
The underground skate scene in the city offered a belonging and a purpose for kids from some pretty rough background. These kids became each other's found family in many ways. How much of this was about self expression on the board and how much, how much of it was about their survival as human beings and human souls?
- [08:40]
Josh Swade
Well, it was, you know, as we, as we, I think, do a good job in the film of showing the audience. Skateboarding for them was like the ultimate release. You're right. Most of them, if not all of them came from really difficult home situations, broken homes, abusive parents. You know, many were latchkey kids and they had no, no control being young people. No control over, you know, the circumstances they were born into. Yet once they got on the board, a real sense of freedom drove them. And that happiness that came from just writing became an escape. And you know, that's a, that's a story that's pretty, you know, pretty bespoke to New York City. Skating, you know, was the ultimate kind of ticket to go wherever you want. You don't have to be stuck in your home in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. You can go suddenly to Manhattan and find your crew and together you guys can go, go explore. And it creates a bond, it creates family and yeah, the self expression comes as they get better and hone their skills and find their own. You know, the thing that makes each one of them an artist and an athlete. Because skaters are really both of those things. They're, they're artists and athletes all at once.
- [10:16]
Unknown Host
Let's take a call. This is Mitchell, who is calling in from Manhattan. Hey Mitchell, thanks for making the time to call all of it. You're on the air.
- [10:26]
Mitchell
I'm glad to participate. Skateboarding started for me in around 1962 using a two by four and a broken in half steel skate with steel wheels. And we were in Far Ockaway in the Edgemere projects. We used to ride the boards sitting down tandem, leaning our feet onto the opposite person's board. And we would lean back and forth and kind of go down the hill in front of our project buildings. And it eventually led me to looking for the advanced skateboards of the day that were sold in Central Dive Shop in Jamaica, Queens from Hobie Skateboards and Hobie Surfboards. Eventually became a surfer, went out to California, worked in a surf shop, sold skateboards with Chicago trucks and Cadillac wheels. And that's when it turned to urethane after the ceramic wheels used to stop on rocks and get thrown off the skateboard and get all kinds of rashes on your skin from scraping against the sidewalks. However, as the culture developed and I was selling skateboards, it all of a sudden really blossomed. When I was living out in California, we were always in search of the best hills to skate on. And it was quite a community of guys and gals that were skating. And when it started getting really popular in the 70s, 80s and 90s, it got to be all the trick skating and all the aerial stuff and riding. How should I call them? I guess they would be considered banisters and staircases or outside staircases. But I'm still skating at 70 years old.
- [12:20]
Alison Stewart
Love that. Thank you so much for calling Mitchell. Love that. He's skating at 70. I want to talk about the community that came up around these sort of community clubhouses where the kids, the young skaters were going to. They were small and they were mighty. They were skate shops. Why were they so important to the community?
- [12:43]
Josh Swade
Well, I mean, I think in a lot of ways. And by the way, Mitchell, thank you for sharing that good story.
- [12:50]
Unknown Host
Right.
- [12:50]
Josh Swade
That was an incredible story. You're an OG of New York City skateboarding, for sure. I think in a lot of ways, they were looked at in the beginning as nuisances. You know, they were in people's way. They were, you know, scaring folks walking down the street. I mean, this wasn't a city that had welcomed this activity with open arms, you know, to put it mildly. I mean, they were. They were really, really outcasts in this city. And our story kind of shows that history. I mean, you get to the end in. In modern times and, you know, the city has done an unbelievable job changing its attitude towards this sport and this pastime. With skate parks now littering our five boroughs. It's. It's beautiful and amazing to see, but it wasn't always like that. And. And so you got plenty.
- [13:46]
Alison Stewart
You got plenty of local officers telling kids off, get off my. Get off my front. Get off my property with your skateboard.
- [13:55]
Josh Swade
Exactly. So, you know, it is a really cool story about a changing city and a city that changes its attitude. I mean, you know, we are one of the great skateboarding cities now. And that's. That's certainly a testament to people, like, going all the way back to people like Mitchell and, you know, continuing on through the decades. And these 90 kids kind of brought it all home, you know.
- [14:18]
Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Philip, who's calling in from Manhasset, New York. Hey, Philip, you're on the air.
- [14:23]
Philip
Hey, sure. I'm from, like, Flatbush, Brooklyn, and I just recall, like, all the times that we'd, like, leave, like, that Stuy.
- [14:33]
Ariel
All.
- [14:33]
Philip
Over the place, like, meet up kids from. From Lower east side and from Harlem and just like, meet up at the Brooklyn Banks. It was amazing. And it's like, I don't know if anyone. Any of the listeners. I would echo everything the last caller said. It was like, you know, we would like counter culture. And it's like everybody didn't like skaters, and we just, like, took over the streets and just, like, just enjoyed it and, like, really, really just like, hung out. There's no cell phones. Everybody knew where to meet. Meet at the Brooklyn Bags. The cops shut it down years ago, and I'M so amazed by the way the city is like, embrace the culture. Building skateboards for kids. Now. Listen, I'm, like, 50 years old. I still have my skateboard, too. Santa Cruz. Wonderful. And I just love it.
- [15:25]
Alison Stewart
Thank you so much for calling. Philip, we have a question for you. The text says, will you please ask your guest his favorite New York City skater of the 90s?
- [15:38]
Josh Swade
My favorite what?
- [15:39]
Alison Stewart
Your favorite New York City skater from the 90s. Of all the people you met and interviewed for the film.
- [15:45]
Philip
Oh.
- [15:47]
Josh Swade
Now you're putting me on the spot. I mean, so many of them did things uniquely themselves, so it's hard to. It's like comparing great artists. But, you know, Ryan Hickey is a guy that. They called him the King of New York. And he. He skated so fast and boisterous and, you know, Ali so big. He was a guy that, like, I could watch for endless amounts of time. He stands out to me as just like someone who really, really, in the 90s, brought home what it meant to be a New York City street skateboarder.
- [16:28]
Unknown Host
Yeah, you have a lot of the OG skaters in the film. Jefferson Peng, Ryan Hickey, as you mentioned, Javier Nunez.
- [16:34]
Alison Stewart
Was there anything that they told you that surprised you about their experience?
- [16:42]
Josh Swade
Well, I think that their. Their allegiance to the brand and the shop. All these years later, you're talking about 30 years after it's opened. It opened in 1994, and here we are 31 years later, and, you know, I thought we'd run into some people who were, you know, bitter about sort of how big it got and, you know, had a lot of negative feelings towards just, you know, the exploitation of this little tiny shop that they. They made cool that they called home. And really, everyone is just so celebratory and so, you know, complimentary about what supreme meant to them and what it still means to them. That it was really heartwarming.
- [17:36]
Unknown Host
We're talking about Empire Skate. It's part of the 30 for 30 series. My guest is director Josh Swade. Do you have any memories of the New York City skate scene from the 80s and 90s? We want to hear about them. Give us a call at 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. After the break, we'll get into Supreme.
- [18:11]
Alison Stewart
You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We are discussing the documentary Empire Skate, about a group of kids who helped define New York City skate culture. You can watch it now on Disney, espn and Hulu. I'm Speaking with its director, Josh Schwaid. We've gotten to 1993, 1994. There's sort of a resurgence around skateboarding. It's got a new, new energy. And one person, James Jebbia, saw an opportunity. He transformed the skate clubhouse to a retail space under the heading Supreme. What was the original business strategy and what was different about Supreme?
- [18:54]
Josh Swade
Well, I think what made it so unique immediately was it didn't look like any skate shop before, looked like an art gallery. You walked in there and the products that they did sell were, you know, against the wall in the neatest, most pristine way, you know, they could be presented. And the skateboards themselves were displayed as if they were pieces of art. And so, and the ceiling was, was really high. You know, you had, you had white walls and hardwood floors. And it just, you know, before then, a skate shop was like a workshop. It was the sort of place that was dirty and grimy and gritty and had bearings and trucks and tools and, and, you know, crap everywhere. And this was the antithesis of what James Jebbia envisioned for his, his shop, Supreme. And so that alone made it really, really different and unique.
- [20:00]
Alison Stewart
James Jebbie is kind of missing from the film. Why'd he like to stay behind the scenes?
- [20:08]
Josh Swade
Well, you know, I. He's a guy that's, you know, wildly private. And I think that's been. That mystique has been a big part of, you know, the, the magic of the brand. It kind of in my, in my mind is incredibly refreshing. It's, it's so. It's such a, you know, far turn from the culture we currently live in where everyone's posting every last thing on social media. And, and he just isn't that. He comes from a different, a different time and place and, and that kind of mystery behind him really added to the brand, especially as it started to explode as a legitimate, you know, fashion house. I mean, it, it be. It started as a skate shop, right? But like, the clothes and the, the hats and the sweatshirts and all the gear became so coveted that, you know, it really became this brand new idea in fashion. And the way, the way they released product was trailblazing as well. You know, they, they would release new capsule collections every week. And so that, that drove demand. There was, there was a real supply demand, sort of marketing masterclass that was, you know, brought into play here that, that no one had ever done before. And that just drove people nuts trying to get the stuff. And then, you know, this reselling becomes a whole market. It becomes A big explosive business in and of itself. So it's not just about getting the stuff, it's about selling the stuff for a profit. And there's this micro economy that gets birthed in downtown New York that's now global.
- [22:03]
Unknown Host
Yeah, it's sort of interesting because Supreme's clientele changed over time and people got used to the drop and buying and reselling. What does it say about culture, maybe even counterculture, that something so raw and local could become so collectible and commodified?
- [22:21]
Josh Swade
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, we've seen it with like high end couture brands, right, like, or, you know, ladies handbags. I mean, there's, there's certain items over the years where, gosh, if you can get your hands on it at retail, it's just going to go up in value. But for that, for that idea to come into streetwear, you know, at the time was unheard of. And, and you know, sneaker culture and the prolifera proliferation of sneakers and sneaker collecting and sneaker reselling and the seek, the secondary marketplace also plays a huge role in this because collaborations come into play and suddenly. So it's not just about Supreme. It's about supreme making a Nike dunk. It's about supreme and, you know, Louis Vuitton. It's about supreme and another great brand coming together to create something that suddenly brings in two different audiences and then that just drives up the demand to a whole nother level. So, you know, like I said, it really is like a masterclass in, in, in marketing that, that, you know, was birthed at this tiny skate shop in downtown New York at a time where, you know, we think of soho, New York and we see all these stores there and it's, it's kind of like this shopping Mecca. But in 1994, it wasn't, it wasn't that. It's hard for people to imagine, but, but without supreme, you know, you wonder what SoHo looks like today. I, I think it looks quite, quite different. I really do.
- [24:01]
Unknown Host
Let's take a call from Ariel, who's calling in from Brooklyn. Hey Ariel, thanks for calling in.
- [24:09]
Ariel
Hey Allison, how are you doing? Great, great, great. I was just reminiscing and this brings back so many deep memories. We grew up in Midwood, Brooklyn. We, our shop, like a clubhouse, like you mentioned, was Marine Park Bikes. And back in the day we would skate in Brooklyn. We'd skate in the Lower east side, Greenwich Village quarter. Pipes would pop up everywhere. There used to be one in Red Hook. There used to be one on sixth Avenue, where there was a gas station that got closed down, and boom, there's a quarter pipe, and guys would be flying off of it.
- [24:46]
Philip
Awesome.
- [24:47]
Ariel
Washington Square park also was a central area for guys to skate. We built a half pipe right in the shadow of King's Plaza in Brooklyn. And guys would be flying over the top of this thing, and you could see them from Flatbush Avenue, you know, just driving by. It was amazing. We made papers, we made it into the center fold of the daily news magazine, some local papers, and, you know, music. Skating, even snowboarding started back then in the early 80s. We got one of the first, you know, fish fin snowboards in our shop. Just great times and, you know, great memories.
- [25:30]
Unknown Host
Thanks a lot for calling in. We got this text that says somewhere along the way on my commute from Queens to Staten Island, I used to cross a drawbridge, which occasionally was open. Unforgettable scene. Skateboard artists waiting for the bridge to open. And when the roadway went up, they would come tearing along, go up the risen roadway, curve around and come down. How the heck they got away with that, I'll never know, but it was impressive. That's such a good. A good text. You know, the world, sort of the world at large became more used to, more accustomed with skateboarding through the kids. The film Kids. It was in 1994. It was an indie film.
- [26:18]
Alison Stewart
It came out.
- [26:19]
Unknown Host
It was controversial coming of age story surrounding skateboarders in Washington Square Park. Some of the skateboarders became local C, lowercase C, celebrities. 1. How long did that attention last, and what did that attention do to skate culture?
- [26:43]
Josh Swade
Well, the film came out about a year after supreme opened. And it really was, you know, kind of brought such a huge amount of interest to New York City skateboarding, because, like you said, it was a really controversial film. And it was a film that made waves for a lot of different reasons. You know, the AIDS crisis being one of them. But one of the beautiful things about the film is just the lens. It provided the outside world to this building culture in New York City, this building skate culture. And it did make stars, you know, especially for guys like Harold Hunter and Justin Pierce, who were leads in the film. It made them not just New York famous, but, I mean, Justin Pierce went on to, you know, act in several. Several other films. And it was a launching pad for not just those two individuals, but the entire crew. So its significance, you know, you really can't. It was a big, big cultural moment in the country, but in particular in New York City. What it did for These guys who before that movie were just kind of local skaters, it really put them on the map in a very big way.
- [28:10]
Alison Stewart
In the archival footage, we see how dangerous it was to skate in the city at that time. Cars screeching to a halt, people getting beat up for interfering with skating. How did New Yorkers feel about the city skate cult back in the 90s when it was blowing up?
- [28:27]
Josh Swade
Yeah, I don't think they felt great about it because, you know, you're walking down the street, suddenly four guys are coming at you or coming from behind you. You know, it's scary. You know, it's. It's daunting to kind of interact in a city where everyone's sort of, you know, managing a few square inches as they, as they go about their way. And, you know, New Yorkers, like New Yorkers are very emphatic about their right of way and, and are not the kinds of folks who historically are. Are patient enough to, to sit and wait if someone does a trick in front of them. So there was this, like, give and take. How do we coexist here? How do we live in a tight space that allows me to get where I want to go, but allows you the freedom to express yourself on your skateboard. And in the 90s, there was a lot of, you know, animosity towards these folks. And with time, like anything, they became accepted. I think their value, their, you know, artistry, just everything they stood for became celebrated more than kind of, you know, disliked or disdained. And so, you know, finally people got on the same page as New Yorkers, like, hey, we can. We can make this work. But, but even still, today, you know, you see skaters, you know, riding down, down a busy street and they're getting flack from. From passerbys. I mean, it happens every day everywhere in the city.
- [30:08]
Alison Stewart
Still, that's a little part of it.
- [30:10]
Unknown Host
Though, don't you think?
- [30:11]
Josh Swade
It is for sure.
- [30:14]
Alison Stewart
You should watch Empire skate. It's another 30 for 30 from ESPN. You can watch it on ESPN, Disney, and Hulu. I have been speaking with Josh Wade. Thanks for joining us, Josh.
- [30:27]
Josh Swade
Thank you so much for having me.
- [30:30]
Unknown Advertiser
Lowe's knows July 4th savings are worth celebrating right now. Get up to 40% off select major appliances and get an additional 10% off two or more select major appliances. Plus get three Scott's Naturescapes 1.5 cubic foot mulch bags for just $10. These deals are coming in hot. Lowes we help you Save. Valid through 7, 9. Selection varies by location while supplies last. See lowe's.com for more details. Excludes Alaska and Hawaii.
- [31:00]
Progressive Insurance
NYC now delivers breaking news, top headlines, and in depth coverage from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening. By sponsoring our programming, you'll reach a community of passionate listeners in an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship wnyc.org to learn more.