Here is the last installment of photos from the NYC skating trip. Days 3 and 4…
DAY 3

After not getting much sleep, we awoke at the crack of dawn and skated down to the Google NYC offices to have a meeting with George Strompolos from YouTube. Besides having the meeting, George gave us a cool tour of their offices as well. We also shot a bit of video inside the hallways that will be uploaded to an internet near you real soon. Thanks George!

Just a quick stop to saw off a dog on the streets. We’re on our way to The Banks for the third and final time to continue filming.

Lockport, NY and Edison, NJ united at The Brooklyn Banks.

After we finished up at The Banks and paying our respects we skated off to Penn Station with a quick pit stop at a few stores (stores will remain nameless… gift recipients might be reading) for some Christmas shopping. Here is a shot of Times Square.

Upon arriving at Penn Station, two round trip tickets to Mike’s hometown of Edison, NJ were purchased. Mission: Meet up with members of the Noside Posse and dinner at Tastee Subs.

Destination complete! We’ve arrived at Tastee Subs to meet up with with Don Bruno and Al Battagliotti.

Mike and Al out side of Tastee.

After grinding off a few subs at Tastee we headed over to Al’s shop, Central Jersey Skateshop to hangout, talk skating and swap war stories. Here is Al, Don and Mike checking out…

…some of Al’s Mike V deck collection. Decks from Powell, Transit, Black Label, Vallely Skateboards and Element.

Noside Posse, friends for life: Don Bruno, Mike V, Al Battagliotti.

After hanging out in the shop, Al and Don gave Mike and I a ride back to the train station. While we were pulling our gear out of the trunk, Mike donated the board he put together for this trip to Al for his collection. Stoked!

After arriving back in The City we hoofed it over to The Empire State Building at 1:30 in the morning. Here we are 86 floors above Manhattan.

Here is the view looking towards downtown.
DAY 4

Another early morning rise and we were off to meet up with Carl from Ferret Records for brunch across from our hotel.

Mike signing his Powell Peralta pro model “Model Vallely” ad for a friend of Carl’s newborn son.

Carl and Mike.

Here we are back at the “biggest airport in the world” waiting for our flight back to Los Angeles.

Five hours later we’re back in LA. Cue the Randy Newman song.
Brooklyn Banks… see you in 2014 hopefully. This is a time we’ll remember.
-Larry
Here is the continuation of the photos from our trip to New York City. Day two…

The next morning we were up and at ‘em and down at The Banks for skating and a photo session with Sean Cronan.

Timeless trick at a timeless skate spot.

A break in the action while Sean reviews some of his shots. Lots more action then you see here went down. I shot some video of Mike while Sean captured some amazing images.

Here is Mike at the now unskateable upper Banks.

After skating The Banks we were headed back to our hotel and we ran into a group of skaters on the street who recognized Mike.

Obligatory group shot.

After a quick stop at our hotel to drop off our gear we were back out on the streets to head on down to a club called Crash Mansion to attend a party that our friend Joe DeVito invited us to. On our walk all the way back downtown, we passed by the location of the now gone CBGB.

Once inside the party a lot of people wanted to have their photo taken with Mike.

More photo ops.

Joe DeVito and Mike.

Time to file a cease and desist.

Evan Seinfeld from the band Biohazard was hosting the party. Mind blowing randomness.

The yule log kept us warm all night.

Okay.

Mike and Joe having a great time.

Becca, Mike, Dooner and Joe.

Ratbones.

After the party ended early we headed over to a bar called Max Fish to meet up with Bam Margera and his posse.

A lot of the bar locals were skaters and rapped out with Mike a bit. This guy rocked his helmet the entire night.
That’s it for day 2. Pics from days 3 and 4 are coming up soon. Stay tuned.
-Larry
I just returned home from a four day, action packed trip to New York City with Mike V. The legendary East Coast skate spot, The Brooklyn Banks, will be closing mid-January 2010 until sometime in 2014 and Mike wanted to go to The City one more time to skate The Banks, shoot some photos and video. As always, I brought my point and shoot camera along for the trip and snapped off a few photos along the way. On with the show…

The trip begins at the Los Angeles International Airport. Here we are inside the American Airline VIP lounge killing a little time before our overnight, redeye flight into New York.

View from the VIP lounge.

Our terminal was all decked out for Christmas.

Leaving Los Angeles.

Landed in New York. First stop… the automated teller machine.

“You’re at Kennedy Airport… New York… Biggest airport in the world…”

Loading up the cab for our ride into The City.

This is the ceiling of our hotel lobby. Straight out of the movie Tron.

After checking into the hotel and not sleeping at all on the overnight flight, we hit the streets and started skating from midtown all the way downtown to get to the Banks. Some where along the way it started raining so we made a detour to the Element store in Times Square for an inpromptu appearance.

Element NYC.

Here is Mike helping a fellow skater choose a new deck. Guess which one he got?

The store was pretty busy with holiday shoppers and it didn’t take long for people to start to recognize Mike and the autographs and photos began.

We left the Element store and continued on our way down to The Banks. It was still raining but we thought since the banks were partially covered by bridges, it might still be skateable in the rain. We were wrong as you can see.

Sean Cronan came out to shoot photos of Mike but the session was rained out. We will try again tomorrow.

Where are we?

The rain forced us underground for our trip back to the hotel.

After a quick stop back at our hotel we were off to have dinner and meet up with some of Mike’s family. Here is Mike and his nephew, Matthew.

This is the Christmas Tree in front of Rockefeller Center. You know… NBC and stuff.

After dinner the rain had stopped so we walked (Mike loves to walk and will hoof it anywhere.) down to the Bowery to catch a Matisyahu show at Webster Hall. A friend of ours manages Matisyahu so we got hooked up with free tickets and the VIP treatment.
After the show it was more walking back to the hotel for my first sleep since Friday night.
Stay tuned for pics from day 2.
-Larry
It’s gonna rule.

It’s coming together.

Last night at The Ugly Mug Coffee House in Orange, Ca; Dan O’Mahony, Michael “Popeye” Vogelsang and Evan Jacobs got together to speak, play music, and show a movie.

Tonight’s venue.

The bill.

The host for the evening… Andrew “The Jake” Jacobs.

Here is Evan Jacobs introducing a sneak preview of the first chapter of his film “Orange County Hardcore Scenester: 1990-1997.”

Zach de la Rocha in “Orange County Scenester.”

Popeye told some intense stories/introductions to the songs he played.

Popeye performing.

Dan O’Mahony finished out the night with engaging stories…

As well as reading a few passages from his books.

The crowd inside The Ugly Mug Coffee House.

Dan’s books were on sale.

A Chorus Of Disapproval: Regis, Jeff and Isaac.

Mike Hartsfield and Evan Jacobs.

Jordan Cooper, Billy Rubin and Ron Martinez.

Jordan Cooper, Dan O’Mahony, Popeye and Evan Jacobs.
Lance Mountain is on the cover of this month’s Skateboarder.

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