In 1994, Williamsburg
photographer Vincent Cianni focused his lens on a tribe of inline
skating teens in the then-gritty neighborhood. The nearly 10-year
fascination with the Hispanic boys as they demonstrated their
jaw-dropping tricks on ramps, rails and jumps deepened into friendships,
and now his decade-long study has resulted in a new book, "We
Skate Hardcore: Photographs from Brooklyn’s Southside" (New
York University Press, $24.95), published on Sept. 30.
The collection of black-and-white and color photographs also
has a DVD bound into its back cover that has footage of the skaters
in action and a slide show of memorials – to young neighborhood
men slain by AIDS, drugs and domestic violence – that surround
the skaters.
In the book, Cianni quickly discourages any notion that he is
a dispassionate onlooker documenting his surroundings. He lives
in the neighborhood and befriends the boys and invites them to
write the captions to their photos – not only in the margins
but also on the actual photographs. The captions are, perhaps
unintentionally, even more revealing – their poor penmanship,
spelling and grammar are evidence that in addition to having
the strikes of poverty and crime-infested streets against them,
the boys haven’t even had the opportunity to get a good education
to skate out of this urban wasteland.
But time is a silent character in the book, and since ’94 there
have been a lot more artists like Cianni moving into Williamsburg,
followed by yuppies, high rents and chic boutiques and cafes.
Cianni follows the now-young men out of the southside of Williamsburg
to where they’ve been stationed as part of the U.S. Army or to
a wedding in Ohio.
Cianni’s collection of photographs is an arresting look at a
group of boys who embraced a dangerous sport and in the process
of building their skate parks and learning new stunts, formed
a tight-knit community of friends who looked out for each other
and helped one another survive.
SKATER BOYZ
