Ben Allen Interview

Jesse Clayton is no weekend warrior

Jesse Clayton got a write up in Popular Mechanics for his work at Pop’s Skate Space entitled “Philadelphia’s Volunteer Skateboarder” in their Hometown Heroes section. He organized a group of tradesmen who raised money by throwing beef-and-beer fundraisers and auctioning off hand-painted skateboards. Donations also poured in from the Tony Hawk Foundation and Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund, a local skating advocacy group.

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2 Nights of Skate films about NY City

Wednesday, July 28th,7:30 pm Special Screening in Honor of Andy Kessler Deathbowl to Downtown: The Evolution of Skateboarding New York City Dir. Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski (2009) 87 min. Deathbowl to Downtown documents the shift in skateboarding primacy from the parks and the pools of sunny California in the 70’s to the gritty streets of New York in the 90’s. This transition also foretells the recent hybrid uptake of skateboard culture in Harlem and other communities of color. Panel Discussion and Reception to follow! Thursday, July 29th, 6pm Screening in Honor of Harold Hunter Skating @ Lenox Ledges (110th and Lenox) Followed by an 8pm screening at Maysles Cinema Legends Never Die Harold Hunter Tribute 15 Years of NYC Skteboarding ( 95’-’10) by R.B. Umali. In the Streets – Steve Marino 55 Nights on Your Couch – 5boro Reception to follow! Maysles Cinema 343 Lenox ave bet 127&128th st HARLEM www.mayslesinstitute.org $10 Suggested Donation

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X-Games kick off event at Pops this Thursday

Join us on Thursday, July 29th from 4-6pm for an X Games kick-off event at Pop’s Playground. We will also celebrate the one year anniversary of the opening of Pop’s Skatepark! **This event is free and all are welcome. Please see flyer below for additional event information.** We hope you can join us on Thursday, July 29th, from 4-6pm at Pop’s Playground to celebrate the kick-off of X Games 16 and the one year anniversary of the opening of Pop’s Skatepark! The event will feature professional skateboarder, Kerry Getz, and his team from Nocturnal, as well as Dan Curtis Lee from the Disney Channel’s show “Zeke and Luther.”   This event is free and all are welcome to attend.

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Reign Skate Whitehall Montage

Whitehall has some new stuff thanks to Jesse Clayton, Franklins Paine, and Jesse’s cast of hard workers. Reign skateshop was up there when it was finished to get this rad little montage for their site on the new Pyramid/Euro Gap/Hubba structure. There are 2 new ledges as well, from what I hear. I can’t wait to skate it. It looks rad. Thank you to everyone involved in making this happen. Whitehall definitely needed some work. Whitehall Montage from justin berry on Vimeo.

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this saturday

First Annual Patrick Kerr Memorial Skate Jam July 31st, 2010 All Ages – Cash Prizes – Free Giveaways Entry Fee $20 Sign Ups At 10 Contest Starts at High Noon Rain Date August 1st sponsored by http://www.finalboarding.com/#mce_temp_url#

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Whitehall

Go and get it.

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Wondering about the Bethlehem Skateplaza Grand Opening on July 16-18

Tomorrow and Saturday is the grand opening of the Bethlehem skate plaza. Many thanks and praise goes out to Homebase for their continued effort and support in the skateboard scene. Is anyone going and want to report back for haveboard.com? Homebase has everything you need to know about the event. In an effort to make sure you know everything you could possibly need to know about the Bethlehem Skateplaza Grand Opening- here’s everything you need to know: The Bethlehem Skateplaza’s address is 1325 Steel Ave.  Bethlehem, PA 18015 (It’s across the street from the Sands Casino) The Grand Opening is a 3-day long event.   It’s ALL FREE, open to ALL AGES and once the skateplaza opens- it too will be FREE & for all ages. Thanks to Jeff Pang and DC Shoes, The Berrics will be covering and our Grand Opening Event and we might even make it on Fuel TV. Volunteers Needed! I know everyone is psyched for the plaza but we need people to donate some time to really support it this weekend.  Please call the Bethlehem Parks & Rec Department and volunteer: 610–865-7080 Now thoroughly read the flyer for the more information about Friday & Saturday’s events:

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have board, will skate… issue 4 – 2004 – now online

So I finally got around to re-uploading the first 3 issues of “have board, will skate…” as well as uploading issue 4 for the first time. I did issue 4 in 2004 when I lived in Albuquerque and worked at Kinkos. The first run was full color, coil bound, with a clear vinyl front and back. Black and White bifold/stapled copies came a little later. If you’ve never seen the printed copy, you should check it out.

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Whitehall skatepark

When it comes to skate parks, Philadelphia gets small By Joelle Farrell Inquirer Staff Writer It has been nearly a decade since city officials booted skateboarders from their hallowed ground at John F. Kennedy Plaza, where the glossy granite ledges lured enthusiasts from around the world and became home to the city’s street-skating scene. LOVE Park’s replacement, a skate park along the Schuylkill River Trail called Paine’s Park, is closing in on its $5 million fund-raising goal, but is still a ways off. In the meantime, community organizers and skateboarders are pairing to build smaller, pocket skate parks across the city. The successful launch last summer of Pop’s Skatepark, a pint-size place built by volunteers who transformed a run-down block in Kensington into a magnet for youths and parents, attracted notice from community organizations. Similar parks are now planned for weedy playground lots in Southwest and West Philadelphia. “Pop’s Playground was a recreation space that was kind of forgotten about, kind of neglected, and people came together and they put their sweat equity to it,” said Paulette Adams, an outreach coordinator for the People’s Emergency Center, a group hoping to bring skate space to the Mantua section of the city. “It became a totally different feel, and now it’s a strong community base right there.” This month, builders plan to rehab the graffiti-covered Whitehall Skatepark at Carmella Playground in Northeast Philadelphia, a spot built in 2001 when the city was host to the X Games. Jesse Clayton, the mastermind behind the design at Pop’s Park, will add two ledges and a half-pyramid at the site, and spruce up the half-pipe and other obstacles already there. The project, estimated to cost about $10,000, will be fully financed by Franklin’s Paine Skatepark Fund, a nonprofit organization with the goal of expanding skate space in the city. Pop’s, a $25,000 project, was funded by a grant from skateboard legend Tony Hawk and money cobbled together by skateboarding and community groups. “I think everyone knows what position the city’s in: The city’s broke,” said Clayton, 28, of Langhorne. “Their first priority shouldn’t be to go around building skate parks. People got to jump in, people got to see a need for it.” Franklin’s Paine and local community groups have proposed two more pocket parks, one in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia and another at McCreesh Playground in the Mount Moriah district of Southwest Philadelphia. The proposed site in Mantua – 37th and Mount Vernon Streets, currently a dilapidated playground – may change because a ShopRite grocery is looking to build at the site, said City Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell. But she and community groups like the People’s Emergency Center still want to see a skate park built in the dense neighborhood. “I think the skateboards are great, and I believe this city is big enough for all activities,” Blackwell said. “We have to make sure we get a site that everybody agrees to.” Gloria Guard, the outgoing president of People’s Emergency Center, said about 100 people came out to skateboard at the park’s basketball court at a recent skate day event. “It’s a sport that has taken off. It seems to be much more popular with African American youth than it was a decade ago,” she said. “There’s a lot of excitement about the skate park.” Neighbors of McCreesh playground have already collected about 100 signatures in support of a plan to transform an aging roller hockey rink into a skate park. The projects are still at least several months away: They need funding and are expected to cost between $100,000 to $150,000, according to estimates by Franklin’s Paine. “We have a lot of renewed momentum,” said Claire Laver, executive director of Franklin’s Paine. “I think attitudes are really shifting, and people are realizing that skateboarding is a completely legitimate expression for youth.” On any given summer afternoon, Pop’s Park, at Trenton Avenue and Huntingdon Street, is teeming with children learning to grind ledges and pop ollies. On Saturday morning, experienced skateboarders offer a two-hour clinic to teach others how to do tricks. “It’s definitely in a little bit of a tough pocket. It’s an area of the neighborhood that probably needed something to be proud of,” said Laura Semmelroth, a member of the New Kensington Community Development Corp., a group that since 1995 has fought to rehab the park. “I think for a lot of people, the skate space has done that. “This, whole huge groups of boys use and use it, and it occupies their days,” she said. “They’re in there skating and hanging out, and they’re tired at the end of the day and not getting into trouble.”

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TWS rips SkateNerd name for trivia show

Skatenerd.com has been around for quite some time but today Transworld announced the coming of a new Skate Trivia show entitled “Transworld Skate Nerd”. Brian Nugent has been running with the name “SkateNerd” for as long as I’ve known him, over a decade. Yes the term ____nerd is fairly common and there is even an Urban Dictionary entry for it but Googling Skatenerd will generate several top links showing skatenerd.com associated content. I’m not sure what legal stake there is in this name by either Brian or TWS but it’s pretty poor form of TWS (in my opinion) to name their trivia show “Skate Nerd” when the entity of “Skate Nerd” has been around for over a decade, based in the Philadelphia skate community. What’s your opinion on all this?

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