We Skate Hardcore: Photographs from Brooklyn’s Southside features photographs by Vincent Cianni depicting the lives of a group of young Latino men in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Taken over the course of more than eight years, the photographs follow their stories as they dedicate themselves to becoming virtuoso inline skaters — building impromptu skate parks, honing their skills, and using sport as an alternative to the temptations of drugs and crime. Cianni’s work also provides a compelling portrait of their relationships with friends, girlfriends, and families, told in part through their own words written on the margins of the photographs.

We Skate Hardcore also shows the varied paths the skaters’ lives took: one, Richie Velasquez, turned pro, while another dropped out of school, and eventually joined the Army and was deployed in Iraq.  Yet others stayed in the neighborhood, where they are carrying on their lives within the network of family, friends, and community that shaped them.

MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. FIFTH AVENUE AND 102nd STREEET. THROUGH AUGUST 6,  2006

A book of the same title is available at the Museum shop, co-published by New York University Press and the Center for Documentary Studies.