Metropolitan was a short lived wheel company done by Deluxe with a distinct New York City image. Most of the riders were East Coasters. The team included Keith Hufnagel, Ryan Hickey, Gino Iannucci, Giovanni Estevez, Mike Hernandez, Bobby Pueleo, Maurice Key, Javier Nunez, Ivan Perez and Ben Liversedge.
One of the complaints against the NYC scene that you always heard was that skateboarding was only a small part of their lifestyle, which was brought about by the number of so called chilling shots in the ads. Metropolitan was probably extra guilty of this crime, if it even is a crime. I thought it was cool to see some slices of life and the moments between the tricks.
Ari Marcopoulos took the photos for probably all the Metropolitan ads.
Thrasher - March 1995 Volume 15 Number 3
2 comments:
Don't make ads like that anymore. Though the Paul Rodriguez and Clark Hassler Nike ads were a decent facsimile.
As someone who lived in NY state and skated in the city itself, I have never taken to the slice of skateboarding as presented by NYC skaters, especially the Zoo York team (before they bought the Aesthetics pro team). As vast as the city is, all I've ever seen as far as coverage is the Brooklyn Banks, a Bobby Puleo-type cellar door photo, the Seaport benches, the blue fountain in Flushing, or someone ollieing sidewalk to sidewalk over a street.
People like Harold Hunter, Pete Bici, and the rest of the Zoo team from the late '90s to mid '00s are the ones in my mind who epitomize the "chillin" attitude. You'd get tons of profiling pics like in the ad, but very seldom a skate shot. And because of this I still dislike the Zoo York team(s), even though I know they have rippers on their team like Zered Basset and Forrest Kirby. Someone brought a copy of the new Zoo video to the shop, and I won't even give it a viewing. That's how bad I dislike Zoo York.
— Rikku Markka
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