Back to the Banks

Underneath the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side of the city lies an area that has become legendary on many levels.

This area is called the Brooklyn banks and because of the efforts of Steve Rodriguez from 5boro, it remains one of the only natural skate spots in a public space. To celebrate the achievement in preserving this spot and encourage others to do the same, the second annual Back to the Banks contest was held August 19th, 2006 in the spot that Rodriguez saved. Along with the support of Red Bull, Emerica, Volcom, Spitfire, and Skateboarder magazine, this contest went off!

This event’s grassroots appeal got out to the people, and the people did come. This year there was triple the amount of crowd and energy at every obstacle. There were four obstacles: a bank to double ledge, bank to wall, the ten-stair rail, and a marble kicker. One thousand dollars was the award for best trick on each obstacle.

After ample warm up and records spun, the contest began and the crowds swarmed to watch Red Bull’s own Zered Bassett slaughter the bank to double ledge with a frontside 5-0 to backside revert. Zered clinched his win with a frontside nose blunt slide across the top of the two ledges. Even legend Mark Gonzales came through to session the double ledge a couple times before the event moved on to the wall ride.

At the wall ride, everyone was skating sick, but to get the cash, you had to be consistent with the landings. After a good session, Jimmy McDonald took the win with a backside nollie big spin to wall ride. The best thing about this contest is that there are always people skating outside of the contest itself too. To the left of the wall ride there were probably forty kids skating the banks with their friends trying to emulate everything they were seeing the pros throw down.

Next came the Brooklyn Banks Rail where the action and the tricks kept flying. Every time someone landed their trick they had to hope the crowd was going to stop them in the landing zone because it was so packed from every direction. After a long session and a weeding to five finalists, Ryan Bobier ultimately tied with Jake Donnelly. Bobier came with a frontside blunt slide to fakie and Donnelly came back at him with a kickflip frontside boardslide. They each walked away with $500 each.

The final obstacle was the marble kicker which was just a bit wider than a board’s width and launched skaters over head high as they tried to grab what was left of the cash. Colin Hale ended the victor for this obstacle with huge nollie flip.

In the very end, the overall winner was deemed Matt Allen because he competed in every event and stomped his tricks solid to boot.

Huge congratulations go out to all the winners and see you all next year.