team, Emerica Skate

Posted: May 8, 2008

Wild in the Streets -- A History Lesson?

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Emerica's Wild in the Streets is an unconventional skateboarding event born on the streets of New York City in 2004, and continued in Philadelphia in 2005 and Chicago in 2006. Pedestrian jaws dropped at the sight of hundreds of skateboarders invading these downtown districts en masse. The premise was simple: Meet up with the Emerica team at a local skate shop and go street skating, literally, throughout the cities, eventually ending up at a block party barbecue, where the skating continued.

In Philadelphia, one of the stops was a protest at LOVE Park, to raise awareness, in conjunction with the Skateboard Advocacy Network, for the plight of skateboarders in that city. In Chicago in 2006, 3500 skaters pushed from Buckingham Fountain, after a group photo and a massive thank you to the Mayor of Chicago for supporting skateboarding, all the way to Wilson Park, a hefty six miles through downtown and up the Lake Shore Path, in the biggest skateboarding demonstration ever.

In 2007, the Emerica team mixed things up a little, moving the Wild in the Streets to July 4, Independence Day, in one of the greatest skate cities in the world, San Francisco, to celebrate freedom doing the thing they love the most: skateboarding.

For 2008, we're going back to where it all started for the fifth Wild in the Streets: New York City. It's on a Saturday this year and the crowd of skaters will blow minds -- if you've never been part of anything like this, you've picked a good year for your first one! Don't miss this -- your friends will thump you on the head for being dumb. Be part of the future history -- be in New York City on June 21 for the biggest gathering of skateboarders ever.