Milano Centrale has long been the heart of Italian skateboarding and while it isn’t without drunken and sometimes violent quirks, it’s undoubtedly one of the most important spots in the world. Since the construction on that part of the plaza was finished, just about every big name in skateboarding from the past 3 decades has had a turn to skate the beautiful white ledges that the city is famous for. Matteo Di Nisio was one of the first to skate there and remembers “Skateboarding first began at MC in the mid '90s when the part of the square that is skated was still under construction”, however for years before people were skating the marble bank outside of the Pirellone, across the street from the plaza. According to Gio Onorato owner of ‘The Skate Shop’ in Milan “The Italian scene during the late 90’s and 2000’s was very alive, generations of skaters from all over Italy would meet each other through contests which were thanks to the old Italian skate magazines. There was a lot of commitment and a lot of fun, videos weren’t released very often but when they came out they were a blast”.

In the 90’s and early 2000’s, being in a different country might as well have been a different planet, especially when it came to skateboarding media. Updates in the skateboarding world slowly trickled through a few magazines and a couple of shops that sometimes got the newest release from across the Atlantic. However, with the construction of the Milano Centrale plaza, a cyclical movement was created by the many foreigners flocking to the spot to level up their abilities during the more pleasant months of the year, then going home only to return the next year. The main difference between then and now was that the communication took place through word of mouth, a few posters, flyers, shopkeepers and the few national magazines at the time. You can only imagine the emotions felt when the Centrale locals arrived at their local spot to see the tricks and style of those at the forefront of progression in skateboarding at that time. According to Gio “Lots of international professionals and amateurs came to visit Milan during the 90’s and 00’s. From the greatest legends of skateboarding such as Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, Lester Kasai, John Lucero, Tommy Guerrero, Rodney Mullen, Tony Alva, Steve Alba, Eric Dresden, Ed Templeton, Salman Agah, Danny Way, Mark Gonzales, Jason Lee, Chris Patras, Darren Navarette, Ray Barbie to the more recent ones such as Gino Iannucci, Steve Williams, Chris Roberts, Mike Carroll, Guy Mariano, Rick Howard plus more”.

Ray Barbee is one of the most iconic to ever do it, with his smooth style and unique bag of tricks, he had a huge influence on the skating world during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Arguably his most influential video part came out in Powell Peralta's "Ban This" (1989) however he also had footage in other Powell Peralta videos until he left to join ‘The Firm’ where he had footage in almost all of their releases during the 90’s and 00’s. While over the years he has made many trips over to Italy, his first was in the late 80’s with Powell Peralta “Back then there weren't all the social media resources to keep up with progression, so I remember the tricks people were doing in Italy at that time were about a year behind what we were doing, it really tripped me out at first”. When asked about what keeps him coming back to Italy he said “In general it's just amazing to be somewhere with such old buildings and churches. I really enjoy the beautiful architecture. Something funny that I do remember, the first time I visited Italy I was 17 and didn't know much about the origins of pizza. So when I had my first Italian pizza I thought to myself this isn't a pizza, this is just thin dough with a little tomato sauce and some pieces of square mozzarella cheese with olives. I then bit into the olive not knowing the seed was still in it and almost cracked my tooth”.

While those first Powell Peralta trips were a sort of exploration of the unknown for international skaters, by the time that the Girl and Chocolate family were visiting Milan in the late 90’s and early 00’s, it was already well-known internationally as a European gem with Centrale being the crown jewel. Tony Ferguson was at the top of his game after having parts in Girl’s first full length videos ‘Goldfish’ (1994) and ‘Mouse’ (1997). He, Mike York, Stevie Williams, Rick Howard, Scott Johnston visited the plaza in 2000 and were filming for what would become ‘Yeah Right’. “Girl was on a European tour and we knew we wanted to go to Centrale train station in Milan to film some things. I was around 20 years old on this trip but we had all already been traveling a lot in Europe, Asia and across the US on tours by this time. I always had a great experience with friendly locals around the city but at Centrale at that time it was pretty rough. We were a big group with cameras and I do remember attracting the attention of people just hanging out at the station pick pocketing, etc. We got into a couple altercations with people lurking on the camera equipment”.

On the same Girl/Chocolate trip Mike York, one of the biggest names in skating at that time, was pushing around Centrale and few of the other relatively unskated gems such as the new 6 and 10 stair hubbas at Bicocca. “All of the spots in Italy were amazing! In particular the Centrale local spot with that energy, it reminded me a lot of EMB and Pier 7, I love when a skate spot gets you hyped.” When asked about his most memorable clip that he filmed on that trip, he recounted a classic “Out of all the stuff I filmed for ‘Yeah Right’ that front crook shuv-it at Centrale was the trick that I was most stoked on. At that time I hadn’t seen anyone do it before so I decided to give it a shot”.

There were plenty of other international teams coming over to Europe during the summer, doing demos hoping to broaden their markets to the growing scene in Europe, and in 2000 one of those was the Zero team with the chief Jamie Thomas. Photographer Gabriele Lopez was shooting with them while they were in Italy, “We went skating in Bicocca together in the morning before the demo along with Matteo Di Nisio, Luca Basilico and a few others. The Zero guys didn't really skate in Bicocca, I don't know if it was due to jet lag or if they were just tired, but it was only the Italians who were filming. Even though they weren’t skating we all chatted in a relaxed and friendly way. In Centrale at the demo that afternoon I remember it was absolute chaos as you can see from the photos. There started to be this sort of "adoration" from everyone watching which made the session very unnatural, although at demos like this I think it's a normal occurrence. I didn't see great tricks, and in fact they aren’t great photos, but rather a somewhat picturesque “show”. Completely different from the situation with Scott Bourne and Karma Tsocheff that had come to visit a few years earlier. That day we all skated for a long time as friends, but without crowds and autographs, I have very fond memories of that time, pure skateboarding, no industry ideas or demos.

Just about every foreign skater's main memories of skate trips in Italy are the kindness and respect they were shown by not only the local skaters but the general public too, unless you’re Stevie Williams. Tony Ferguson remembers “Our distributor would take us to the best local restaurants and bars, etc. One night they took us to a really nice restaurant that was pretty high end and they brought us out a famous traditional pasta dish from the region. As we started to eat Stevie Williams was putting sugar all over his pasta, the servers saw him doing this they lost their minds! They were yelling and screaming that "You can't do that" and he was being “disrespectful”. I think they asked us to leave after that”.