The November issue of The Blue and White will be on campus shortly.  Bwog has posted highlights from the issue over the last few weeks–take a look!

“You could die,” reads the slogan of the Broadway Bomb, an unsanctioned longboard race down the legendary avenue. The disclaimer is no exaggeration; more than 500 boarders barreled down Broadway to the bronze Bowling Green Bull on Oct. 16th, rolling through red lights and weaving between cars.

Skaters gathered on Riverside and 116th Street before officially starting the tenth annual race outside the Columbia gates. Adrenaline aficionado Phillip Dupree, SEAS ’11, joined the daring skaters, whom he affectionately calls “concrete surfers.”

“Do you know what it feels like to be so in the moment that time goes from a ticking clock to a fluid flow?” Dupree asked. For him, the speed and the danger make the race seem like a blur. “Ten minutes, an hour? Not important.”

Had you been standing on the corner outside of Morton-Williams when the race began that Saturday, you probably wouldn’t have also lost your grip on the space-time continuum, but you might have nearly lost much worse. Only moments after the stroke of noon, a torrent of boarders charged up 116th Street, careened around the corner, and jetted down Broadway, all with the hell-bent fury of a pack of Harpies. Taxi drivers angrily honked and bewildered tourists grabbed their cameras. One spectator even played the concerned mother—Dupree remembered a middle-aged woman shouting “helmets and pads” to the flood of racers.

In less than an hour, Dupree completed the Broadway Bomb and joined his fellow longboarders in celebrating the race’s end with cheers. “Your legs are burning,” Dupree remembered. “People that don’t think skateboarding is exercise have no idea what they’re talking about.” But the party did not last long—screaming sirens soon interrupted the cheering. “I heard someone yell, ‘It’s the cops. Book it!'” Dupree said. “Did I mention this race is completely underground and illegal?”

–Carolyn Ruvkun
Illustration by Maddy Kloss