Skateboarding crew leaves mark on Atwood

Marco Forni has lived on Meyran Avenue for nineteen years – his entire life – but this is his… Marco Forni has lived on Meyran Avenue for nineteen years – his entire life – but this is his first year attending Pitt.

Forni isn’t involved in any student activities yet, his major is undeclared and he is the kind of student who is quiet and usually sits in the back of his classes. But many, without knowing it, might already consider him to be a fixture on campus.

He and his friends have become parts of a landmark as recognizable as Bill, the guy sitting on top of the boom box and singing, or the Kings Court castle.

Forni is one of the skateboarders on the corner of Atwood and Sennott Streets, those guys everyone recognizes, but no one knows by name.

Black scuffs crisscross the curbs they ride behind Forbes Tower under the wash of white light from the street lamps and the vigilant eye of the dome-enclosed security cameras.

They lace their bodies through cars and trains of students and catapult themselves over curbs, riding distinctively decorated skateboards and sporting personalized flair including mismatched shoelaces and tattoos.

Forni, a lean skater with an eagle-emblazoned skateboard, has been skating on Atwood for longer than most of Pitt’s undergraduates have been here.

He started skateboarding six years ago when he was a student at Central Catholic High School, and Atwood has always been his favorite skating spot.

“Skateboarding’s first and foremost what I love to do,” Forni said. “School is something I do to fill the time.”

Forni said Atwood is great for skating because it has bright lights that are on all night and because it’s a high traffic area, which can provide entertainment on the weekends.

“It’s not just skateboarding,” Forni said. “It’s a social experience.”

Eli Maciak is a skater who lives in West Deer, 20 minutes from Oakland, and he travels to Oakland each day to skate on Atwood.

He said he has made the commute for the past four years because there is nowhere to skate where he lives and because all of his friends skate on Atwood.

Skaters organize themselves into groups called skate posses, and Maciak’s friends are a fusion of two, formerly-independent crews: Dirt Crew and DNAB.

Bobby Daly, a 20-year-old skater and South Oakland resident, described Atwood’s allure, which attracted skaters from miles away and united two rival skate crews.

A five-year veteran of Atwood, he said skate parks aren’t a good option for skating because they have admission fees and sometimes require skaters to wear protective gear.

Forni has always been an advocate of skating at Atwood, which led him to become a leader of sorts for the skaters at this particular corner, including fellow Pitt students Bill Cunningham and Jason Simonette.

“Basically, Dirt Crew runs Atwood,” Forni said.

Skating on Atwood is not, however, exclusive. Members of both crews say that they will skate with anyone who stops by.

The skaters on Atwood are usually playing a game called “Skate” in which they try to match tricks that the others do, similar to the game “Horse” in basketball.

The skateboarders cheer and whoop when someone does something impressive as they take turns flying and falling across the street.

But the social aspect of skating on Atwood isn’t always positive because of run-ins with the police, drunken students and general “skater-haters.”

Forni has already gone to court once for skating in his favorite spot.

“I can’t really remember what the charge was, but I walked,” he said.

Simonette is a skater on a black and gray board with gem-studded rings in his gauged ears, who could be considered to have countless small tattoos on his torso or one massive one.

He recalled a time when security guards threw them out of their skating spot every night. That stopped, however, with the arrival of Forbes Tower’s security cameras.

Simonette said he assumes that in watching the videos from the camera, guards realized that the skaters were doing no harm to the area.

Though Forni said he thinks the police don’t like him and his posse, the skaters and the police have been able to quietly coexist recently.

“They let us skate here because we’re respectful,” Forni said. “We clean up after ourselves.”

Aside from the blackened curbs, the area where they skate bears few reminders that they do so when they aren’t there. The street is as clean as any other in Oakland and the flowers in the neatly mulched flower beds remain intact.

The only sign that they were there is the black graffiti bearing the name Dirt Crew on Forbes Tower, but Forni said that his clan isn’t responsible for that. He suggested that someone else may have done it to frame him and his friends.

“We wouldn’t tag our own spot,” Forni said. “That’s ridiculous.”

Still, the police drive by the skaters up to six or seven times an hour, keeping a careful eye on the comings and goings of Atwood.

The skaters attempt to be unobtrusive despite the clicking of the loosened, rolling wheels on their boards. But sometimes, an impressive jump or a gruesome fall, or a quick flash of the pink, lime or purple undersides of their boards pulls the attention of Atwood’s pedestrians.

Most people who passed by didn’t openly display interest in amateur skateboarding, at most casting a glance in the skaters’ direction as they maintain their pace.

A large family stopped at the corner and stared for a few minutes, not holding back their ooh’s and aah’s, and their occasional cheer when a skater landed from a successful, impressive trick.

A few skaters muttered at the annoyance as the unabashedly interested family did not refrain from staring and even pointing at them like a caged attraction that they paid to see.

On another occasion, a passing student asked the skaters to do a trick while mockingly skipping as if she were on her own imaginary skateboard.

Forni replied with a frosty glare from the curb and two middle fingers.

“People always stop and ask us to do a kick flip,” Forni said. “It’s so disrespectful. I’m all about live and let live.”

Some of Atwood’s skaters would go as far as to defend others’ right to mind their own business.

In the UPMC parking lot at the corner of Atwood and Sennott Streets, a man in a hooded sweatshirt on his way to a bar harassed a homeless man. Skater Bill Cunningham defended the homeless man, picking up his purple-bellied skateboard and yelling at the other man to leave him alone.

A vulgarity-studded exchange followed, ending with the hooded man leaving.

“He was picking on that homeless guy – that guy’s got enough problems already,” Cunningham said.

Dirt Crew members agree that they just want to skate and mind their own business, but skating on Atwood has definitely created some grudges, particularly against fraternity members.

Simonette said he acknowledges that fraternities probably do a lot of good things, but when they are drunk, they usually end up taunting the skaters in massive groups of one or two dozen.

“Skateboarders never, ever start s— with people,” Forni said.

But it’s not all fighting with the drunks and avoiding eye contact with the police. Forni said his crew on Atwood is really all about having fun.

“I just go to class every day, get all my stuff done and then go hang out with my real friends,” he said.