MEN OF STYLE: Harold Hunter

Summertime always makes me think of my friend, the late actor and professional skateboarder Harold Atkins Hunter.

I met Harold in the summer of 1994 when I moved to New York City. Back then I rolled deep with a pack of West Coast pro skaters who introduced me to the East Coast skater crew, Harold chief among them. He was 19 and I was 17. We quickly became best friends, spending our days laughing about nothing, sitting on stoops drinking 40s of Olde E and smoking honey dipped blunts. At night we hit the clubs, where Stretch Armstrong, Bobbito, DJ Jules and an upstart, Mark Ronson, spun the latest Wu-Tang, Biggie and Tribe tracks.

It was also the summer that Harold had his first co-starring role, in the film Kids, written by our mutual friend, Harmony Korine. Harold took to acting like a fish to water—he was always performing, whether holding court at Astor Place, in the basement of Fat Beats on East 9th street or grabbing falafels at Habib’s Place. When he wasn’t cracking jokes he was making wry observations like “Liz I know you’re a nice girl because you always wear jackets that cover your ass.”

ASTOR PLACE

·

August 27, 2024

I moved to New York with my best friend Danielle in the summer of 1994, fresh out of high school. The movie Kids was about to start filming.

Harold was deeply sensitive, with an emotional depth he often hid behind humor. In our early twenties he was staying at my family’s house in L.A. when my childhood dog Ricky, then on his last legs, was unbeknownst to my dad, lying underneath his car when he pulled out of the driveway and hit him. Needless to say it was an awful situation. Harold cried harder than any of us, to the point where my father went into further guilt and shame over his reaction. It was a week before Harold could contain himself when he saw the spot where Ricky had died.

The style that Harold so readily possessed was beyond what he achieved in skateboarding—in itself a sight to behold. He was outsized in every way, sometimes too much so for his own good, but that too was part of his charm. His style was ephemeral, he churned up energy like he was on a mission to blaze across the night sky. He could talk faster than anyone, conducting multiple conversations at once as he connected people from the diverse worlds he traversed—skateboarding, film, music, fashion and of course, the L.E.S.—mixing high brow and low brow with ease. Harold made friends with everyone. I once threw an event in Los Angeles with Chanel, and invited all my skater friends who came en masse, led by Harold. The head of Chanel PR at the time told me how “cool” it was that my friends were smoking blunts in the corner of this fancy Hollywood event (meanwhile I was mortified that my true stoner nature was about to be revealed to my professional colleagues.) But of course Harold made a great impression.

Harold burned bright, and as we moved into our late twenties, was burning the candle at both ends. With celebrity came the pitfalls of excess without proper support systems in place to help him navigate his career, his finances, and more importantly his emotional and mental health. His friends and Zoo York, the skate company he’d been associated with since he was a teenager, did our best. But as anyone who has ever loved someone caught up in the spiral of drugs and alcohol knows, there’s only so much help you can offer.

Harold passed away February 17, 2006, a couple of months before he would have turned 32. It’s been 20 years now and I miss him like he never left. I still keep his number in my phone because I can’t bear deleting it.

In his memory, The Harold Hunter Foundation (HHF) was founded in 2007 to help transform the lives of New York City kids youth through the power of skateboarding. HHF provides mentorship, mental health support, skill-building, and career development opportunities for youth in New York City through skateboarding-based programming. In 2025, HHF partnered with skate legend Tony Hawk’s foundation, The Skatepark Project, to strengthen the organization’s mission, expand programming, and maximize impact. To make a donation or participate in their programming, check them out HERE.

Ps. You may be surprised to know that my skateboarding lore goes deep but as Walt Whitman said, I contain multitudes.

xxLiz

ASTOR PLACE BONUS

·

August 29, 2024

As a bonus to ASTOR PLACE, here’s a short film featuring some of my skate memorabilia & dream skate team line-up, directed by one of skateboarding’s great documentarians, the one and only Patrick O’Dell of Epicly Later’d fame. This was produced for a collection I designed for Altamont Apparel in 2012.

HOLLYWOOD STONER

·

August 20, 2024

I tried almost every drug except for crack by the time I was 17. It all started when I fell in love for the first time. I was 13. He introduced me to weed, The Grateful Dead and gave me a bootleg tape of Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. I was hooked— on him, hip hop and weed.