There is an intersection at Monroe and Pike Street where Manhattan sheds its excess, revealing something rawer, more essential. Here, in the Lower East Side, beneath the monumental arches of the Manhattan Bridge, the rhythmic, almost tribal, roar of the B and D subway lines conjures a sense of belonging that transcends verbal language, leaving skateboarding as the only shared grammar.

LES Coleman Skatepark does not challenge the urban fabric; it embraces it. It exists as a natural extension of the city, conforming to its contours. The iron and stone pillars of the bridge cut through the space, casting monumental shadows over granite benches and handrails that precisely echo the vocabulary of New York’s streetscape.

The eye widens across what reads as a concrete manifesto: since 2012, through the vision and redesign of Steve Rodriguez, this site has become a global landmark. A microcosm where the hierarchies of the Big Apple dissolve, undone by a community that has elected the skateboard as its muse, and through it, continuously regenerates itself.

We are granted the privilege of exploring this skate mecca through the lens of Simone Strano, a Neapolitan visual researcher long based in Rome, who has chosen to immerse his gaze in forms that are as urban as they are human. His project spans over a decade: a timeless continuum that narrates, through portraiture, detail, and motion, the essence of a spot and of a movement in constant expansion.

Echoes of this sensibility emerge throughout his own biographical account.

Simone Strano

“My passion for photography began in Naples, the city where I was born and raised, sparked by a gift from my grandfather. At nine years old, for my First Communion, he gave me a compact camera. That ‘mechanical eye’ fascinated me immediately. I started shooting relentlessly: anything, everything. Over time, it became natural to deepen my knowledge, to collect books… Eventually, I left university and moved to Rome, where I attended a professional photography course. Today, in my daily work as a retoucher, photography remains a space of decompression: an art form that captivates me precisely because it allows me to step away from the digital perfection of commercial work.

During my high school years, I met a guy who skated: something quite rare, especially in Naples. The raw sound of wheels grinding against asphalt struck me deeply. With ups and downs, I began skating as well. Although my time on the board has gradually diminished due to back issues, my affinity with street culture—the music, the style, the sense of belonging that skateboarding has always embodied—has never left me.

This project was born over ten years ago from the convergence of these two passions. Its core took shape in 2014 in the Lower East Side, beneath the Manhattan Bridge. I have to admit, arriving at that spot made the contrast with Rome, where I was living at the time, immediately apparent. If Rome’s street surfaces discourage anyone from stepping on a board, in New York skate culture permeates everything. It runs through the veins of the city: you feel it instantly. The board is an essential means of urban transport, whether you’re grocery shopping, commuting to work, or running daily errands.

During those three months, the LES skatepark became home: an urban institution where space and the energy of a heterogeneous community allowed me to photograph in complete freedom. Becoming part of that community as a photographer happened organically. My daily, prolonged presence in the park made me a familiar figure: recognized, accepted. Paradoxically, the strength of such an individual discipline lies in its extraordinary ability to generate collective bonds: skateboarding breaks down every barrier. It is a universal language. No one cares who you are or where you come from: the only thing that matters is a shared passion for the board.

My visual approach initially revolved around portraiture. I would stop skaters for extremely tight shots, shooting wide open: sometimes focusing only on the nose, letting the rest dissolve into blur. I also produced wider portraits, with boards held in the positions each skater preferred. Then I shifted toward details. Coming from commercial still life, I’ve shaped a particular sensitivity to objects and forms. I photographed wheels, tattoos, broken decks, worn-out shoes. Eventually, I moved into action, using slow shutter speeds to capture motion: approaching photography, in a way, with the same instinctive process that guides skateboarding.

As I mentioned, skateboarding offers a way of observing reality through a different lens, one that has inevitably influenced my artistic approach. Much of what attracts me comes from the underground, standing in stark contrast to my professional work, where everything must be polished and perfect. When shooting personal projects like this, my instinct moves in the opposite direction. In New York, I tried to transfer the inherent roughness of skateboarding into the images: seeking a ‘dirty’ aesthetic composed of grain, motion blur, and defocus. Above all, the goal was to produce images that feel authentic.

After those initial three months, I returned to the LES skatepark other times. More than a decade after the project’s inception, while curating the final gallery, I also adapted the work to reflect the evolution of my taste. I chose to unify the project through black and white: a decision that removes the images from any precise temporal context, creating a timeless continuum. Ultimately, I know that if I returned to LES today, I would still find skaters embodying the same spirit, the same style. I revisited the material in a physical, tangible way: printing, tearing, writing on, recomposing, and rescanning the images to strip away digital perfection in favor of a more raw, analog approach.

Now, seeing this journey, developed over such an extended period, take shape as an editorial publication is deeply rewarding. It’s moving to be able to tell the story of such an iconic spot in New York’s skate scene through my lens.”