Summer is in full swing in NYC right now, which means there are dozens of events, galleries, parties, and skate shindigs going on every week, and pretty much all of them are giving out free booze too. But all that walking around and partying often results in a serious case of the dreaded swamp ass. So, as with anything, there’s positives and negatives to the season, your underwear may be soaked with sweat by the night’s end, but you’re also most likely nice and buzzed off the free booze from all the spots you hit.

Over the last couple of months, adidas took it up a notch and actually rented a space in the Lower East Side to throw a couple of gallery events, showing off some local and not so local photographers, and giving shine to other talented heads that may be around the city. Every couple of months they plan on using the space for events, and the turnout for their most recent event, as you can see below, was solid.

When I would visit my brother in the city when I was younger, I remember overhearing a conversation where he was explaining to someone that you can kind of live like a teenager forever in NYC. Of course you have to pay your bills and hustle to pay overhead, but the older I get the more it seems true – you are never too old to party and do what you want and be a part of whatever scene you want. In most places, turning 44 might mean you move to the burbs and get a white picket fence and some kids, but for Alex Corporan (seen in the header photo), he was celebrating his birthday like he just turned 21.

J-Hon, the former photographer for Slave, had a nice little section of his photography showing. He helped us shoot some photos for the Jenkem x Cliche x Sean Cliver video of the world leaders, and he also used to live with Fritz Mead, the dude with the incredible backyard bowl.

Here we have Bogdan from the Gnarmads – a crew that has been heavily involved with the NY scene as well as pretty much anywhere else you can skateboard. They recently went to Cuba to check out the skate scene there and donate some boards.

Gonna try something new here since this photo is too perfectly set up not to: Best caption contest – starting now and ending when we say so. Leave your best caption in the comments below, and we’ll send a Jenkem Vol. 1 book to the funniest/most entertaining caption. Caption contest over. See comments section for winners.

There was a pretty good turnout in the space – not too crowded, and not too empty, which is a thin line to walk. A lot of people like to blow out their events and just invite everyone and hope it’s so crowded people will call it “hype” or “lit” – which I guess works to some degree, but then anyone that went to the event mostly remembers it as that “sweaty, crowded, skate party,” which maybe isn’t the takeaway you want at the end of the day.

Have you guys noticed the crazy amount of press female skaters have been getting recently? I mean, last year we had female Street League and in the last couple months we’ve had Vogue, The Hundreds, and The New York Times (and many others) all covering different female centric skate crews. It’s interesting when everyone jumps on board all at once, and I do think there’s something more at work here than just chance. 99% of skate coverage over the last few decades has been about the boys, it’s about time we showed the women some love!

You might not recognize this dude, but maybe you know him from his videos Smegma and Bum Wine. His name is Dennis, and I’ve met him 1 or 2 times, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember. It was funny, several years ago we hung out wasted at Max Fish the night before a Redbull Manny Mania contest at LES, then the next day I saw him there filming and was all friendly to him, and he just looked at me puzzled like, who the fuck are you? I felt pretty wack. Good times.

Chris Nieratko of NJ Skateshop always jokes about all New York skaters being from New Jersey. And it’s kind of true – even the founder of 5Boro, Steve Rodriguez, is originally from NJ. The dude above, Rodney Torres, is actually a Queens native who has done some riding for Arcade as well as Zoo York. A couple of years ago, right in the middle of the recession, he started Torro skateboards, which is a company and a team with all New York natives. You’d be surprised, but that’s harder to do than you might think since most of NY being transplants.

I was never a fan of solid white shoes until recently when I started seeing Brad Cromer push his look, and now I’m reconsidering. A good pair of black pants and fresh white shoes… fresh or fuckboi? You decide.

As I mentioend before, it was pretty hot in the space, so a lot of people were loitering outside. Left to right: Pat Hoblin, John Grigley (yeah, the OG from Vision Skates!), photographer Chris “Corn” McDonald, and Sam Parks. Watch Pat’s part that I just linked to above… that’s how you fuckin’ skate NYC!

Captions: Ian Michna
Photos: Ray Llanos
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