The neighborhoods we’re raised in play a big influence on how we talk, our personality, and even things like our diets. While those may seem like obvious truths, skaters are especially susceptible to becoming products of their environments compared to the average joe.

Skaters will always be more likely to explore nooks and crannies and discover everything their communities have to offer, especially compared to kids who just sit around at home playing Minecraft.

You can learn a lot about someone by taking a trip to their original stomping grounds, so we decided to launch this little series where we revisit skaters’ old neighborhoods to see what the streets and spots can reveal to us about their early lives and maybe even their current selves.

For our first episode, we visited Manhattan’s Upper West Side with Eli Morgan Gesner of Zoo York and SHUT fame. The neighborhood has undergone a lot of changes since its heyday in the ’90s when Eli was growing up there, right when it was the setting for popular sitcoms like Seinfeld and Friends.

Watch as Eli takes us on a tour to check out some of the spots where he first fell in love with skating and gives us a bit of an Uptown skate history lesson along the way.

Video by: Greg Navarro
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