Skateboarding’s gritty rise from downtown New York streets to the global stage is the focus of Empire Skate, a new ESPN documentary now streaming after its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival.
During an interview Thursday on “Mornings On 1,” film director Josh Swade discussed how 1990s New York helped turn street skating into a cultural force.
“I grew up skateboarding, and when you grow up and find something like skateboarding, it kind of changes your life because suddenly you have a group of friends that you’re always hanging out with,” Swade said. “And you dress a certain way, and you talk a certain way, and you just move through the world a certain way. So even though at some point you might stop skateboarding, the ethos of it never really leaves.”
While skateboarding’s roots are in Southern California, Swade says the film centers on New York for a reason.
“In the ’90s, the sport shifted to the street. And where better to sort of kick off street skateboarding than in the greatest city in the world?” he said.
As skateboarding culture expanded in New York, Supreme, the youth fashion company, emerged as a hub for the skaters.
“These kids needed a skate shop,” Swade said. “And as the sport was evolving in the ’90s in New York, lo and behold, they had each other. But they didn’t have a skate shop. And so in 1994, one finally opens. And that just becomes a de facto clubhouse. So if that’s where they’re hanging out every day, you know, the magic is sort of going to build from that. And their energy and attitude and everything they were about is what made the brand so coveted.”
The documentary includes grainy ’90s footage recorded by skaters themselves, capturing not just tricks but conversations and everyday moments.
“They were getting the tricks, but then they left them on after they were done skating,” Swade said. “So there’s some conversations. So you’re getting their whole lives, really. And it’s that ’90s kind of grainy footage that looks so much better, I think, than this vertical phone stuff we’re all shooting today.”
→ Continue reading at Spectrum News NY1
