Video by Jack Simonson
Words by Jack Steinburg
Florida As Fuck is a video filmed throughout lockdown featuring Jack Steinburg, Jake Yanko, Elijah Allred, Jaquan Kalina, and Garrett Boozer. The video also features a section dedicated to the 441 Banks, a spot made skatable and only accessible during quarantine.
When skaters think of South Florida, they generally think of Miami immediately because of spots like the Triangle, the Fountain, and the Synagogue Rail. When teams and crews come to town, it seems like we only ever see them stay in the Miami zone. As epic as the city it is, there are a lot more comparable cities nearby to skate. Lurking these cities, one can uncover an abundance of untouched gems that are not so blown out. Not even twenty minutes south of Miami there are a variety of sun-baked crusty safe havens, and going north up the state there are plenty more retirement homes and beach towns with clip potential. Florida as Fuck features a crew of spot hunting kids from the sunshine state that roll with legend Danny Fuenzalida, on-fire am Jake Yanko, and the skate rapper that is blowing up by the name of Blp Kosher.
What started out as the Miami COVID hotspot, the “441 Banks” of the Volvo dealership slowly turned into a staple option for locals and visitors as it was a free-for-all due to the building’s closure. The Barcelona-style bank plaza became the spot that our squad would end up at almost every Saturday and Sunday in the scorching heat from noon to 7pm. In the beginning, only the first set of banks were skateable but there was still so much untapped potential: from the channels, to wallrides, the Philly grinders, roll on ledges, and manny pads into the banks. There were countless options, but work needed to be done.
Week by week we started ripping out tiles, cutting bars, rub bricking and waxing everything in sight. Being locals there, we never heard the end of the complaints from visitors coming through saying that “it’s too slick”, or “the cracks are too big”. One day, a security car began to come around and block the banks when we pulled up, so our new move was to jump the fence at the nearby town pool and wait it out until they left.
People would start to say we were obsessing, but we knew these good times wouldn’t last forever. So one or multiple times each week of its lifespan we made it a point to film at the 441 banks, which gave us enough footage to give the spot its own section in the video. Sure enough, in no time the recently vacated car dealership opened back up and was non-skateable again.
