Years later, the creators of Van Cortlandt Skate Park still ride together

As the first signs of spring settled into Van Cortlandt Skate Park — budding trees,  warm sunlight and a course beginning to fill with young skaters — five men sat atop a ramp, reminiscing with one another as they took turns gliding along the park’s features.

More than 15 years ago, the Van Cortlandt Skate Park was a concrete lot with a few basketball hoops, until a group of Riverdale teenagers started pushing to give local skaters a place to call their own. Years have passed since they were huddled around a makeshift drawing of what they envisioned for their dream skate park, but some of them, now in their early 30s, still find time to ride once a week or so. Others haven’t picked up a board in years.

“It’s an outlet where everything is up to you,” said Aaron Sherbakov. “You skating is exactly what you make of it.”

Sherbakov, Michael Alfano, Eusebio Baez, Jeremy Perez and Michael Roberts met as kids, some through Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy and others through the local skate scene. When advocacy for the park started around 2010, the crew pushing for it — named Pixelated, a title members said they inherited from older skaters — was about 10 teens strong, but at the forefront of the project was Alfano.

At the time, 14-year-old Alfano was an intern with the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, he pitched the idea for a Van Cortlandt skate park to some of his supervisors, who encouraged him to take it to former City Council member Oliver Koppell. Alfano said Koppell told him if the community could get behind it, he would make sure the money was secured.

Before the park was built, Alfano recalled cruising down Independence Avenue, doing what is known as street skating, where the group earned a reputation with neighbors for being a “nuisance to everyone,” Alfano said.

He picked up the sport at 13 years old, after friends introduced him to it. Aside from street skating, the teens would ride around the basketball court at Seton Park, in local school parking lots, or take the train into Manhattan to skate parks downtown. But as time went on and they got older, the need for a central community hub grew.

So, the teens started rallying residents. They attended Bronx Community Board 8 meetings to win over members, and convinced neighbors that it would be a less disruptive place for the skaters to gather — something that was quickly supported, Alfano said.

Alfano, who is now an arborist, said skaters in the early 2000s were labeled as “criminals, vandals [and] hooligans.” But that wasn’t true, he explained.

“If you were within the community, it was the complete opposite,” Alfano said. “You could go into the worst neighborhoods and be around people that you would never expect to get along with, and just because you both have skateboards, everybody is your family … And they look out for each other.”

Whether it was tipping off other skaters to police presence while they were riding the streets, or lending a tool to fix a broken board, the support across neighborhoods was unconditional, Alfano said.

It wasn’t until 2017 — seven years of advocacy — that the Van Cortlandt Skate Park finally broke ground. Even then, the group stayed active throughout design and construction to ensure it would come to fruition after so many years of waiting, Alfano said. The long timeline was mostly caused by delays in finalizing a spot, and navigating community concerns such as safety, lighting and fencing.

“It was a pretty lengthy process,” Sherbakov said. “We were not the first people to propose a skate park, we just happened to be the people that got it done.”

Perez, who now does marketing for a leather restoration company, said before the park was constructed, the ground was like sandpaper. Now it’s smooth, and he and several of the other men described the skate park as having a satisfying flow to it.

“It feels like no matter how you skate it, it moves in a circle,” Perez said. “There’s a lot of big open space, you’re not just tied down to skating obstacles … you can cut it up with the homies on the side if you want to. Whatever it is, there’s a little bit of something for everybody.”

Even all these years later, Sherbakov said the park has hardly changed. Other skate parks in the city rapidly decay due to misuse from the riders, or city agencies not keeping up with maintenance, he said, but Van Cortlandt Skate Park is different.

Part of the reason for that is the community it has attracted and continues to foster. Sherbakov said the fact that the group still sees each other regularly, decades later, is a “testament to Riverdale.”

“There’s something about it that is not quite like the rest of New York City,” he said. “It’s very fulfilling as a place to live.”

The part-time musician, part-time driver said within the skateboarding community, there is a certain “nod to each other.” It’s in the minute details, he added, such as a wear pattern on shoes, or the way the inside wrist of a shirt sleeve always appears ripped from rubbing against the grip tape of a board.

“It goes so far beyond city, state, country,” Sherbakov said. “I’ve been in other countries and seeing those signals say, ‘Hey you skate?’ … It starts up a conversation.”

In Riverdale, members of the group have made an effort to build that sense of camaraderie with the generation after them. Some, especially Perez, have built a relationship with the younger kids that frequent the park. Perez noted the sport is not very cheap or accessible for some, and he always makes sure to offer up any old skating supplies.

“I teach the kids what I know any chance that I get,” Perez said. “Any boards that I have that I’m no longer using … I just ask the kids, ‘Hey, do you need this? You need that?’ And that goes a long way.”

Ideally, he’d like to see more government funding for skate parks, and said it helps keep kids off the street and gives them more of a reason to be active.

Roberts, who now works at a dog daycare facility and is unable to skate due to injuries, said the next wave of skaters was front of mind when the teens pushed for the park. They knew it would take years, and most were already starting their careers once it finally broke ground, but thought it was worthwhile anyways. Still, the feeling is bittersweet, Roberts said.

Looking onto the skate park, watching teenagers and toddlers cruise by, Roberts said he’s glad they have a place of their own — somewhere to come together, ride, joke with friends. It’s the kind of space their crew always wanted.

The other men expressed similar sentiments, and hold a deep connection to the sport that played a pivotal role in their upbringing, whether as something that opened them up socially, allowed them a creative outlet or provided a strong sense of camaraderie.

“It’s falling and getting back up,” Perez said. “It’s continuing that process and falling in love with the feeling of finally succeeding. I think that’s what drives every skater.”