Alex: I was born in New York City and I moved to Central Jersey, North Plainfield, in 1969. So I was 3.

SK8TC: How did you end up in Philly?

Alex: I graduated from college in 1988 ... I met up with my girlfriend and moved in with her and we later got married so it was essentially a girlfriend magnetic thing. She brought me to Philly. She was here first, so I followed. I actually didn't skate for about ... 2 years in college, 'cause I was, you know, being an egghead, experimenting, and trying to be a hippy (laughter) so um and you know going out with girls and stuff. So George (Draguns) teased me a lot for having quote un quote given up on skating. But I really hadn't. I was just taking a breather. But when I moved to Philly, I hooked up with Jim Murphy who was also living in Philly when he wasn't touring around with Alva, the Alva team, and he turned me on to Reading skatepark. So I skated Reading exclusively for about a year and a half. That's how I got back in to skating again. I didn't skate any other surface but Reading. So I kind of missed when, the sort of um, the period between 8 ft transition vert ramps to 10 ft transition vert ramps. I just knew like little transitions. So when the big vert ramps started to be built again, I was so afraid and freaked out by them. They seemed so big. That was kind of weird and Reading was also sort of a funny thing to skate for a year and a half, not having ridden anything else. It sort of gave me a weird vision of what skating was like.

SK8TC: Were there crazy sessions there?

Alex: There were pretty crazy sessions there. It was fun 'cause I'd always go with Murf, so that made me essentially kind of a local, they wouldn't charge me to skate, so that made it kind of fun. This guy Yaz, this Middle Eastern looking, big, fat guy, would let us all skate for free. There were sick sessions there. Tag would come and the Charno brothers and Groholski, Bill Rogers, and all those guys. We had some really great sessions there.