By Julie Shapiro – Downtown Express
The Brooklyn Banks is a place with no rules except gravity.
The legendary skateboard spot in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge feels like a world unto itself. The graffiti-scrawled brick slopes on the Manhattan side are dotted with broken glass and blowing garbage. Teenagers bound over obstacles, flying through the air after their board, twisting at impossible angles. It all seems very far from the rule of the city.
That’s about to change, as the city plans to close down the skate park as soon as December to use the space for construction staging. The Banks may not reopen until 2014, when the Brooklyn Bridge rehabilitation project is scheduled to finish. Until then, New York will be without one of the world’s top skating spots, and skateboarders will have to find a new place to go. [Read More]