Long Island GenX skateboarders are still shredding at the skate parks

At the end of a long week of acting their age, a group of Long Islanders 50 and up gathered at a skate park in East Northport.

No, they didn’t get lost on the way to the pickleball court on this chilly Sunday afternoon.

And they weren’t there to scold reckless youth, but to reclaim a bit of their own, push their limits, get stoked and try not to get (too) hurt.

“Falls feel a lot more painful now,” skateboarder Howard Cho, 50, said with a laugh. He pointed to the hip protector he was wearing. “No shame.”

The crew of local Gen X-ers, helmeted, padded up and well-stocked with Advil, took turns pushing on their boards and dropping into a large concrete bowl, which looked sort of like an empty in-ground pool, at Veterans Park.

Cho, a data engineer and father of two from East Northport, rediscovered skating last summer after a 30-year hiatus when his son, Mio, 7, eager to learn, joined a skate camp at the park.

In September, Cho started organizing a weekly group called the Aged Skaters, or Old Bones Brigade — a nod to the famous California-based Bones Brigade skate team formed in 1979, which included a young Tony Hawk. Cho's brigade is aimed at lifelong riders, those picking it back up after years away and any adult who’s ever wanted to learn.

“I think it’s the greatest thing,” he said. “When I’m not working, I’m thinking about skateboarding. And it’s more fun with a lot of people.”

PUTTING OUT THE CALL

The members have bonded over their scrappy, old-school skater days (building rickety ramps in backyards, skating on any piece of concrete they could find and getting chased by cops and business owners). They also talked about new tricks they were working on, all while hardcore punk and metal blasted through a portable speaker.

Though it felt like they’d been riding together for decades, these skaters only met a few months ago, some even more recently.

“It’s insane, you just speak the same language,” said Tristan D’Graves, 50, of Huntington Station. “It’s not a cult, but like a secret subculture. We all have parallel stories. Howard really opened the community.”

Cho initially connected with other Long Islanders through the subreddit “OldSkaters” before creating Instagram and YouTube pages for the group. He thought it would just be him at the park, but, to his surprise, people keep rolling through, he said.

This particular Sunday in early March was an exciting one, he said, as a half dozen skaters showed up, the biggest turnout of 50-and-up rippers yet.

Chris Lloyd, 52, a radio program director from Smithtown, said he’s been skating on and off since he was 10, when he first tried out a mini ramp in a friend’s driveway in Northern California.

“I was hooked ... " Lloyd said. “Those same feelings are still there when you land a trick. ... You have to go to work on Monday, so you can’t be too reckless, but you just keep riding.”

Showing off his board, Lloyd is one of a few here with a reissue of the same deck he rode in the 1980s — a vibrant pink (pro skater) Rob Roskopp design.

‘OG AMBASSADOR’

All eyes are on D’Graves, a longtime educator and an administrator of a private school, when he glides. “The OG Ambassador,” as Cho calls him in a video he took of a recent session, “shows us how it’s done.” D’Graves, rocking a yellow, full-cut helmet and a denim vest covered in band patches, barrels around the bowl, grinds off the edge and lands impressive tricks.

A Malverne native, D’Graves said he started skating around 1985, discovering and falling in love with it simultaneously on Fire Island. He and a dozen renegade friends would skate in the street, build ramps out of scrap wood, hang out in shops — from Bunger Surf Shop in Babylon to Rick’s Action Sports in East Islip — and lose themselves in issues of Thrasher magazine.

He eventually moved to California, near the iconic Powell-Peralta Skateshop (Bones Brigade founder Stacy Peralta co-owned it), and casually skated among his heroes.

Like many of his generation, though, he stopped altogether in the early '90s. But at 32, as “a retired old man,” he recalled, he decided to get back into it when he took his stepson to a skate park — and hasn’t looked back since. After moving back to New York in 2014, he became a regular at Veterans.

“It’s almost like a part of me died when I stopped doing it,” D’Graves said. “And then it was this rebirth of the innocence and sort of stress-free existence. Every time I step back, it’s back. The music, the stickers, the clothes, the shoes. It’s the one thing where, no matter what else is going on, it’s there for me. That’s where I can always revert to being 12.”

His home today feels like a mini-museum dedicated to skating, with decks of every color and design lining the walls like art pieces.

“Oh yeah, he’s obsessed,” said his wife, Kristen Memoli. She takes action photographs of the crew at the park and picked up skating through him. “It’s Peter Pan Syndrome but in a healthy way," she said. "As soon as you give that sort of stuff up, I think that’s when you really age.”

‘LEANING INTO FEAR’

Veterans Park is not the only place you will find elder skatesmen on Long Island.

Michael Ien Cohen, 58, of Northport, recently leveraged up to five decades of skating to create the 2023 documentary “Humanity Stoked,” which features interviews with some of the most well-known skaters like Hawk, and also those like Bam Margera of “Jackass” fame.

The film tackles topics like fear and how to avoid letting it steer people’s lives.

“By pushing yourself on a skateboard, you’re leaning into fear as opposed to giving in to it, and that’s the biggest, most important lesson you can carry over for the rest of your life,” said Cohen, who added his own skating has hit a “high point” in his 50s. “Get out there and take chances. You can’t be too risk-averse. If you’re a creative-minded person, skating is a wonderful form of self-expression.”

GREENPORT SKATE PARK

And in Greenport, after years of advocating for her community’s skate park, Rena Wilhelm, 56, got on a board for the first time in December.

The owner of The Weathered Barn decor store in Greenport, Wilhelm is the president of the nonprofit Greenport Skate Park Inc., which is advocating to revitalize the village’s aging park, one of the first of its kind on Long Island. She finally went skating and immediately understood the hype.

“I love it. … I’m taking it very slow, but it’s great,” said Wilhelm, who has a "Star Wars"-themed board. “Standing on it for the first time, the kids were all enthusiastic, like, ‘You can do it!’ And all the guys were so encouraging. The fact that you can be a woman in your 50s doing it gives you a little street cred.”

LIFE LESSONS, BROKEN BONES

Thomas Bruckner, 50, an astronomy professor at Nassau Community College in Uniondale, said he is still amazed by public skate parks like the one in East Northport, which did not exist when he was a kid. He recalled building a DIY ramp with friends at Wing Elementary School in Islip in the late 1980s because “there were no parks and it was illegal to skate anywhere.” It lasted about a week before the authorities removed it, he said.

Bruckner, of Babylon, returned to the sport last year to bond with his son Christian, 8. “I loved it because, as someone who sucked at sports, you could fail at this and still fit in,” he said. “My son’s doing the same thing over and over and over until he nails it. You can’t learn a better life lesson at that age.”

After Bruckner broke his ankle and wrist within six months of getting back on a board, his friends and colleagues assumed he was done skating for good. He scoffed, “No!”

Similarly, D’Graves mentioned that less than 10 days after he once broke his arm, he was back skating.

“I’ve been accused of having a midlife crisis,” Bruckner said. “But I have a $100 board, not a sports car. In surfing, you experience what’s referred to as a ‘stoke.’ Medically speaking, it’s an endorphin rush in your brain. People take drugs to achieve that, but I’m getting the stoke from this. I don’t want to sit around and get fat. And this is fun!”

Like others at the park, he highlighted the camaraderie: “It’s hard to make friends as an adult … I see them once a week and they’re just really cool to hang out with and talk to.”

NO BAD VIBES

The “kid” in this crew in terms of skating experience is Stephen Buith, of Ridge, a longtime carpenter-turned-maintenance worker who’s actually the oldest, at 60. He took up skating two years ago after meeting D’Graves and carves around the bowl with no problem. He’s no stranger to speed, as an avid surfer and mountain biker for most of his life, with plenty of injuries to show for it.

The long-haired daredevil said if money weren’t an object, he’d love to learn to go wingsuit flying over the Alps next. He recently returned to the board after two months following a leg fracture.

“I’m sober about 28 years, and this is the most supportive environment I’ve ever been in,” Buith said. “Dude, I’ve never had one bad vibe here ever and that’s really the draw … the friendships, socializing. The people and attitude are awesome.”

This is what drew them all to this in the first place, especially Cho.

A first-generation American of Korean descent, he said he learned to skate on a banana board at 10 in 1984. At that time, his father’s work as a medical doctor had relocated the family from their home in New Jersey to Japan for a year, where he and his older brother skated to navigate the streets of Tokyo.

Back in Chester, a small town in New Jersey’s Morris County, it evolved from a mere mode of transportation into an obsession.

“I used to skate religiously, like it was my job,” said Cho, who added he was sponsored by a local skate shop as a middle schooler.

‘A GREAT EQUALIZER’

Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood and being one of the few students of color in his school, Cho said he felt like an outcast. But for him, skating was and remains “a great equalizer.”

“It’s a freedom of expression for people who feel rejected in many ways,” he said, pointing out that many kids he skated with came from tumultuous homes. “It teaches you resilience.”

Through the group, Cho provides free lessons to several first-time skaters in their 20s and 30s — eliminating fear of the skate park, teaching them the basics, showing them tricks and eventually getting them down ramps. He also edits and posts videos from each weekly session, documenting the learning process and allowing each skater to analyze their technique: “It’s elation when I see them doing well.”

Samantha Breslau, 31, of Islip, is among this younger generation of “aged skaters.” She said she showed up to the first lesson with Cho in September, having never stood on a board before. In early March, she “dropped in” for the first time, meaning she skated down a ramp from the top.

“It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life and the most fulfilling thing ever,” Breslau said. “Once you land something, you feel an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment, and everyone here is cheering for you.”