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What’re the origins of the name Jersey Dave?
It all started when I was thirteen years old growing up in a town called Norwood, NJ. There weren’t too many people skating around there at the time, and one day I ended up meeting a few kids from right over the border in Rockland County, NY. At the time, Vinny Raffa was holding a lot of events and contests that I always had my mother drive me to. She’d drop me off in a parking lot behind a record store called Tapeville in Nanuet, NY where we’d all meet up. We ended up in this schoolyard with perfect blacktop banks where Vinny threw a little contest for all of the kids that came out. I ended up placing second or third in the contest and they didn’t know how to spell my last name, so they ended up writing down Jersey Dave. Being that I was the only kid from Jersey skating with all these New York state kids, it caught on and has stuck ever since!
What are some of the biggest difference you’ve noticed skating the city today versus when you first started?
When I first started skating the city not many people skated the outer boroughs, we just skated through Manhattan all day and were fully content with that. Now most of the day is spent driving from spot to spot outside of Manhattan. A lot of spots we used to skate are gone. We used to take the PATH train into the city, skate the benches outside of the World Trade Center, and random spots along the way to the Brooklyn Banks. You definitely wouldn’t see as many kids skating around, either.
Give me your top 3 Jersey skaters from 2000 vs 2015.
2000:
1.Darren Baskinger
2.Kevin Hayden
3.Joe Tookmanian
2015:
1.Josh Wilson
2.Richie Rizzo
3.Ron Deily
What’s one of your favorite stories from teaching in Jersey City, NJ?
First off, I’d like to thank Mark (Wetzel) for the opportunity. If he didn’t hook it up with that job, who knows if I’d be where I’m at with teaching today. One of my favorite stories took place while we were doing a project designing album cover art for CDs. One of my favorite students at the time had decided to do a 2pac album cover. He was obsessed with the song “Hit Em Up” and would sing it in class all the time. During art class I would always let the kids listen to music. On this particular day we were listening to Hot97 and they happened to be playing a 2pac memorial block. The student was super hyped and started singing and dancing. I was helping someone at my desk when the student walks up, grabs my water bottle, and pours it on the ground saying “this one’s for 2pac!”It was amazing, but I didn’t even know what to say. In case you were wondering, his 2pac album cover came out so sick!
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Tell us about your love of skating in Jordans and other basketball footwear.
It all started when I saw Vinny Ponte skate those white Jordans in Zoo York Mixtape. As a kid I always wanted to skate in Jordans but could never afford them. Skate shoes suck these days. They make them too thin and nobody makes a good high top. I’m actually skating this Huf hiking boot at the moment that is real sick! I miss the original Ipath grasshopper.
Let’s wrap this up with a Fred Gall story.
I have a million but this one stands out for me, I hope I can do it justice. One day I met up with Fred and Rodent. They were working on an article and Fred had this one particular spot in mind. It was a wall to bank on top of a roof in a shopping center where he wanted to do the infamous noseblunt pull-in (old faithful/arab money). The parking lot was always packed with people and cars so Fred had never gotten the chance to try it. He climbed onto the roof and did the trick twice in a row while Rodent shot photos while standing on his car. People didn’t even realize Fred was skating a roof, they were just worried about the guy standing on top of his expensive car. Being that Fred had gotten a trick that he’d wanted to do for years, we decided to go back to his place to celebrate. While sitting on the couch drinking Heineken, Fred starts to freak out. Fred points to his girl’s cat, who is sitting on the back of the couch scratching at a photo of his chick and her niece. The photo had “Holy Communion” written on the bottom of the frame. As Fred freaks out, we watch as the cat starts to scratch away some of the letters, starting with the Y, followed by the L. As soon as it said “Ho Communion” the whole thing fell off the wall. Fred freaked out and said “nobody pick up the frame, I don’t want my chick to think that was me!”
Any shoutout?
Big thanks to my family and my girlfriend Julia, NJ Skateshop, Domestics Clothing, Bergen County Camera, Brian Kelley for the HUF boots, Dagget for shooting the photos, you for the interview, and anyone else who has been there for me throughout the years!
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