In Skateboard World magazine for December 1978, there’s an article about the scene in New York called, “Skating in the Big Apple” by Mark Diamond and Charles Feldman. In Brooklyn, there was a team called “Performance Skateboard” which met up at Prospect Park, even though it wasn’t an actual skateboard park, and more of just a collection of DIY wooden ramps.
The subject of girls came up and apparently, “There are no girls on New York’s only skateboard club – but none of the guys seem to miss them. ‘Girls around here are into Disco. They’re not into anything good,’ says Sevino. ‘I can’t blame them. You get kinda messed up riding around the city,’ responds his friend John. ‘Yeah, but in California girls are into it,’ Mick quickly points out, ‘Here, girls grow up too fast.”
And yet, on the following page, lo and behold there is a photo of a girl in knee pads skating the ramp! It warms my heart that the authors proved the locals wrong!
The photo is taken by Bill Jacobs and I would love to know who this rad mystery skater is.
I also happen to know that Beth Fishman, who won the Eastern Skateboard Champions in 1977, beating out all the boys at age 10, based out of New Jersey was ripping around NY like a fiend!
Womxn Skateboard History 