AVE bench

The AVE bench, as it has been dubbed over decades of skateboarding history, is a green curved metal bench. The bench was popularized and named after professional skateboarder, Anthony Van Engelen, after grinding on it in DC's, "The DC video," in 2003, and once again in Hockey's "Dancing on Thin Ice," in 2020 as the obstacle on which he performs his final trick, switch backside noseblunt, on.

History

Background

The bench was originally situated in front of a medical building in Santa Anna, CA, as a pair of two. Sometime in the 1990s, skateboarders discovered the spot and began using the benches as obstacles to perform grind tricks on. The benches were well suited for skateboarding; they had a smooth metal surface, and the height and curve presented a certain level of challenge. However, the location held them back; the benches were surrounded by large shrubs which made them awkward to approach. Because of this, by the 2000s, both benches would be stolen. The first was stolen by a friend of Van Engelens' and the second, by an unknown skateboarder.

First Bench

In 2003 Anthony Van Engelen and his fellow professional skateboarders were filming, "The DC Video," and required more footage. So Van Engelen and company found flatground in downtown LA to set up a variety of skateboarding obstacles for the video, one of these being the bench. They would chain the obstacles together and leave them at the spot for convenience, and to prevent theft. This would be to no avail, however, as skateboarders would cut the locks and inevitably steal the bench for the first time. It was rumored that another professional skateboarder, Tosh Townend possessed the bench, although no adequate proof could be provided.

The bench would remain out of Van Engelen's hands until 2019 when he received a message from an unnamed skateboarder in Huntington Beach CA. This skateboarder informed Van Engelen that the bench had been in his garage for 15 years and offered to return the bench to Van Engelen. He picked it up from Huntington beach and stored it in the original friend's garage, it had gone full circle. It stayed there for a year until Van Engelen decided to revive it for his video part in Hockey's, "Dancing on Thin Ice," in 2020. He set up the bench in a parking lot and began practicing his ending trick for the part, switch backside noseblunt. After 2 visits he once again decided to chain it down in the parking lot overnight due to the inconvenience of carrying and transporting it. And once again, it was stolen.

Fabricated Bench

After the second loss of the First bench, AVE commissions a friend to create a replica of the bench. AVE himself could see the absurdity of creating a whole new bench. He told Quartersnacks, a NY skateboarding blog, in a 2021 interview, "in the back of my head I'm like, this is insane, I'm gonna try to rebuild this thing right now? Your fucking out of your mind. Let it go, you're over it. But then I was like, you know what? Fuck it! This is so crazy, fuck it, let's build it." He

Transfer to Thompkins park

On October 16th, 2021, Anthony Van Engelen's sponsor company, Fucking Awesome, opened the doors to its new shop in New York City on 420 E 9th street 10009, considerably close to Thompkins Square park. To commemorate the opening, Van Engelen shipped the original second bench from California to New York and donated it to the park for others to skate on.

Dimensions

The bench is 13 feet long and weighs approximately 300 pounds.

Stolen from Thompkins

On August 28, 2022, Instagram user @tf_report, an account dedicated to documenting skateboarding at Thompkins Square Park, posted a missing flyer for the AVE bench. The flyer reported the bench as missing as of August 24th, 2022, 8:30 PM, as well as it's expected whereabouts to be, "somewhere in Philadelphia, PA."

References

https://quartersnacks.com/2021/05/favorite-spot-with-anthony-van-engelen-on-the-green-bench/.

https://www.curbed.com/2021/10/anthony-van-engelen-green-bench.html

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/07/1121427442/anthony-van-engelen-skateboarding-bench

This article "AVE bench" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:AVE bench. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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