STEVE RODRIGUEZ: My favorite thing is skating down the
street, you know what I mean?
Just hitting things random here and there.
If the spots are like 23rd Street, it's like, why are you
going to drive there?
The best part is skating to the spot.
At any given time, you'll be skating,
and it's always different.
It's just completely random chaos what's going on.
And you're just meshing with that environment.
It's just such a spontaneous experience,
skating in the city.
It's that old saying.
It's not the destination.
It's the journey.
It's like totally true.
O'Dell, one of the best spots.
Come on, stay with me.
Come come, come.
Follow me, fast.
PATRICK O'DELL: I will come back to "Epicly Later'd." This
show is about Steve Rodriguez.
Steve is one of those die-hard skaters I've ever come across
in my entire life.
And to me, he is exactly the kind of person that you want
to be owning skateboard companies.
So Steve Rodriguez, he runs 5boro.
It's a small company.
They don't run ads.
They're independently owned.
But they've made such a big name for themselves just on
the grassroots level by always having the best local skaters,
and the best up and coming people.
Over time, his team has had some of the biggest names in
the East Coast.
5boro's a company that's just about skateboarding.
He's just in it for the right reasons.
STEVE RODRIGUEZ: I've been skating since around 1983.
I moved to New York.
And I've been here since.
I've been doing 5boro 11 years.
I came up with the idea to--
I want to make a company.
I want to make a company that represents what we're about.
It's just a totally different structure of a company.
Like I'd say, 25% of 5boro's job is working with the City
of New York to make sure that skateboarding is represented
well in New York City, dealing with parks and places to
skate, things like that.
So it's more than just a company that makes boards.
The city, two years ago, the city wanted to renovate all
downtown parks.
And this is one of the parks downtown.
They said, because a lot of kids skate here, the only
skate area was actually going to be this pathway
right here on top.
That's it.
So everything else was going to be taken out.
We got involved, went to the council meetings, talked to
the people and said, they're bitching how stuff's going to
cost so much money, this and that, and the other thing.
And you guys know no one would hang out down
here besides skaters.
Because it's under a bridge.
It's dirty, blah, blah, blah.
The city, two years ago, the city wanted to renovate all
downtown parks.
So they said, OK, well, we're going to take
out the little banks.
And it sucks.
Because that's where all history really is about, the
Brooklyn banks.
It's at the small banks.
And I don't know.
I mean, this area's fun.
But if you've ever skated over there, it was sick.
Because it was a hip, like a wave, not a flat bank.
MALE SPEAKER: Oh, my God, I'm fucking perfect.
STEVE RODRIGUEZ: If you're just in New York City,
everybody has to go to the banks or whatever.
Because you would definitely go to EMB, if it was still
there, even if you couldn't skate there.
Because I remember going there when you couldn't skate there.
And you'd just see people there anyway.
Because it's EMB, you know what I mean?
A lot of kids, oh, I want to go to Love Park, even though
they know they probably won't be able to skate there--
Freedom Plaza, Pulaski in D.C. There's all these holy grail
places that you're just going to go because it's history.
It's like going to see the pyramids, if you're a tourist
or whatever, and you go to Egypt.
It's something you have to see.
This is the Harold thing where I remember seeing Harold
skating here, hauling over this black rail, off this
thing, down to the bottom.
I could swear he was doing it for money once.
Just joking around, but at the same time taking the money.
But there used to be a guy that would jump the garbage
cans here, back when they were the wire mesh.
That's pretty sick.
I mean, that's like one of the first things, like that's when
I was like 10 years old or whatever.
Seeing that shit, and you're just like damn.
But this was a super--
I'd say, late '80s, early '90s--
people would skate this area right here.
I don't know, this was like a, for a minute, this was--
I don't know, for a good like three years probably or more,
everybody used to stay here, these ledges.
These were actually-- you could skate them.
They're like so chunked now.
I just remember coming into the city seeing so
much shit go down.
This is actually--
I met Gonz right there.
This is the first place I ever met Mark Gonzales.
I remember we were just skating down Fifth Avenue.
And there was--
it was more crowded than today.
There was some event going on.
And just seeing him skate right here was--
you're just so blown away.
You're like fuck, that's Mark Gonzales.
Look at this shit.
I know someone's ollied into this.
I think front-side 180, but I think there's
was a back-side 180--
Grosso will probably know-- into the fountain.
That's pretty sick.
Even by today's standards, that's sick.
Actually when Lenny Kirk and Anthony Correa came to New
York, I remember taking them around to spots.
And those two just like seriously, like destroying
everything.
This shit's fun, dude.
And you could tell us it's skated because
look it's fresh paint.
See, look, see.
Get the security guy.
You mean we really can't skateboard here.
[INAUDIBLE]
STEVE RODRIGUEZ: Ah, I'm bummed, man.
I came all the way from New Jersey.
Anyway, this is a fuckin' sick spot.
And I don't know.
That guy's not there at night.
I don't usually come here this early.
But just front-boarding this whole thing, or trying to
front-board the whole thing, it's sick.
There's a new sidewalk.
I know when Harold did this shit, when he 50-50'ed it--
which is pretty sick, because if you flip
over, you get killed.
But the sidewalk was rough.
It was like that.
Yo, I've never seen footage of someone doing this this way.
Have you?
PATRICK O'DELL: You mean, over?
STEVE RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, this way?
No.
But I either saw it in person or saw it in a video.
Someone ollied from here into there--
Anthony Correa.
That's sick.
Get up here, O'Dell.
Check this out.
Yo, but he ollied from here into that shit.
That's asking for some fuckin' teeth, fuckin' to be removed.
This is fuckin' sketchy.
You want to check out the other gap over there?
I don't, dude.
This fuckin' ground is so shitty.
It's pretty sick.
But, you know what I mean?
It's just another one of those spots where it's just because
of the way it's set up.
It looks cool.
Whatever, this is sick.
I don't think I ever ollied this.
And I don't think I ever will.
So we're all old.
We don't just jump down.
Take the stairs.
So weird.
Yo, O'Dell, I hope you got that guy.
Damn.
So I don't know.
So this is Union Square.
There was like a time when Union Square was a place to
skate, two sets of steps here.
I remember my board--
trying to front side 360.
And my board smacking me in the face so
hard, it made a hole.
Like I actually had to get stitches to close
a hole right here.
And back then it wasn't like now nowadays.
You never come and well, let's skate these steps.
This shit was so waxed up.
And it was one of the only curves, like little curves.
John Carter doing slappies on this just like super Hamilton.
Like all those guys that roll through here skate this stuff.
You'd see people actually grind both like this.
I don't know.
This place was fun, dude.
Over here, O'Dell.
So you want to talk about Burton Smith's
destruction of this?
This is like 32 inches high.
The ground was smooth, whatever.
But it's still stick.
I think he fakey ollied it this, half cabbed it, maybe
switch 180'ed.
He might have even pop shoveled this.
He's so good.
That kid was like killing it at that time.
And I know Gangemi--
should we go to the other side?
But you know the famous Robb Gangemi?
He board slid this shit over these little nipples.
It's very sick.
So actually the most spot for advanced people was over here,
this round ledge.
You remember skating this shit back here?
Anyway, this was sick, this ledge, this
round ledge right here--
doing back flips around this, just like tail
slides, all that shit.
This definitely was sick.
To me, this is like a legit spot, where it was fun.
And a lot of people filmed shit here.
Underneath here when it would rain, a lot of people would go
down to the subway.
And there was kind of like a ramp, like a walking ramp.
But it was super wide.
It was the whole hallway.
And people used to just skate and set up shit and
do ollies and stuff.
I don't know, it was fun when it was raining.
You remember the second coming of Union Square, when they
redid this park right here?
So everybody came back to Union Square to skate.
But there was really nothing else, nothing new to skate.
They just extended the sidewalk.
This spot was--
it was good for a while because it was all that
construction material.
You know what I mean?
And then when they finished, it was good for a while.
But let's go check it out.
I mean, they used to come down off the steps, and then
probably to where this large circular pattern was.
That was actually the street.
So I remember some crazy BMX guy, Brendan Kennedy actually
bunny-hopped off the steps into the street, which is,
seriously, 20 fuckin' feet or something like that.
It was kind of impossible.
Damn, I can't believe this guy did it.
I saw him do it.
I was like, damn, that's sick.
You ever get my message about that kid I heard.
I was in the middle of nowhere.
And he said, something about, you go latered?
You ever get my message?
PATRICK O'DELL: Yeah, yeah.
STEVE RODRIGUEZ: Dude, I was fuckin' dyin'.
A lot of people skateboard here, sir?
No, I'm saying, do a lot of people try to though?
SECURITY GUARD: They try to.
But they don't allow that here.
Because that's the guy that runs the building.
STEVE RODRIGUEZ: The boss.
The boss with his ladies.
Hey, hey, check it out--
Epic.
We got an Epic pin.
It's a pin that says Epic, dude.
That's awesome.
This is another little gap right here, over the stairs
and over the fence, quote unquote, something you'd see
in a magazine in California.
You know what I mean?
But it actually was here, and you could skate here.
First 5boro video, Mike Peterson has that shit.
He does front side 180 and the other [INAUDIBLE].
Over that way?
That's a good opening, like the cube, the biggest non-spot
spot there is.
Or there was.
At the time, this was like the TF.
It's like the default spot to go, doing
manuals on six-inch curbs.
This curb had more, has been [INAUDIBLE]
more than anything.
It sucked, too, because it had this lip on it
that you locked in.
But you probably had to slide the whole thing in
order to get out.
If you really think about it, it's just really more like--
it's not really the tricks.
It's just like, oh, shit, that's in New York City.
I mean right away that gives it so much more validity
Harold had some lines here just doing manuals, It's just
I'll admit I backflipped it a couple times with the cool
guys in the background.
Nah, there's plenty of places to skate besides this place.
A lot of people can watch you here.
It's just kind of like a hang-out spot.
A perfect example is what is the real reason people stopped
skating at the Brooklyn banks?
It's because they put that fence on the wall.
And you could no longer sit there.
So at the time, all the people that used to go down there and
sit on the wall, there was no longer a spot.
Because they couldn't sit there.
Here there's plenty of room to sit.
So it's just people wanting to get associated with that, the
New York experience, and skating in New York City.
And I don't know.
When you think about it, so much of
that footage is awesome.
It's classic to see people skating at an old spot back in
the day, this and that.
But was the skating really up to par?
I don't know.
Was it?
Was it not just the same shit?
I don't know.
If it was really a good spot, why aren't people
skating here right now?
Am I being pretty negative here, O'Dell?
I'm not.
It's just more like reality, dude.