Coffin Street
Quise Packer leans against a bright yellow apartment building. He steadies himself. The rough backdrop like the grip tape ingrains tact for the tough. He’s next to his skateboard near the south east corner. This time he didn’t have to kick-push all the way home from Ghetto Park against the sidewalk’s topography. When he didn’t receive a ride, he would cut through gang territories and ethnically distinct neighborhoods; untold miles with motion stories. Fast bearings perform for Quise with the safest path in mind as a single rider. The tactile vibration of the foot stops when the board is kicked upward and caught by hand. The strong sunlight illuminates the setting. The concrete curb at the bottom of the frame edges the portrait that some mistake as an oil painting.
The sweeping L-shape curb, suggests the testing of foot-eye coordination positioned on the deck of the board venturing from the light into the unknown, has a break in it as if it’s there like a stage spike. Ornamental iron bars over windows deter thieves’ prying, picking as well as prevents firefighter access during a burning blaze. The stock facade look: colored stucco, security bars and tight living quarters. If this is the street you lived on then there’s good reasons to want to leave for your personal growth.
It’s a small marvel to zoom in on a location from the privacy of your home and click street view. This is where I have ended up during the process of documenting the lives of skateboarders. You don’t know it at the time, but then you find out.
As an outsider brought inside, without the help of such technology, I spent quality time shooting skate photos with ‘Quise on 10th and Hoffman and around Long Beach, California. Not long before dropping him off he let me in on a secret. Hoffman Street, is a regular street; however, it was renamed by the locals as “Coffin Street” as a result from the high number of young people who have been murdered there. You can click street view, but the street wise comes from the daily paper of the people.