Gotham Girls in NYT

Gotham Girls Roller Derby in New York Times Fashion & Style section.

LESLIE SISSON was gaining on the pack. Ms. Sisson, a tiny brunette, bent low, rounding the curve at a 45-degree angle until she gathered enough speed to burst clean through the clot of legs, wheels and bulky padding that stood between her and the first skater.

She whizzed by, a blur of orange with clenched fists and bared black mouth guard, earning one point for each of the five members of the opposite team she lapped during a two-minute period, or jam in roller derby lingo. Trying to block Ms. Sisson, several of her opponents hooked skates and tumbled, arms outstretched, across the rink and nearly into the laps of fans seated at trackside.

"She's the real deal," said Luke Littell, a freelance television producer from Greenwich Village who came out to the Mott Haven section of the Bronx last month to watch the first bout in the inaugural season of the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, New York City's first all-female roller derby league. Only a few months old, the Gotham Girls join more than two dozen women's leagues across the nation; all have started in the last four years. Driven by boredom, a bad breakup or the chance to try on a new persona, women in New York are joining those from Texas to California in creating a retro-hip renaissance for a sport that was born in the Depression and was last in vogue in the 1950's through the early 70's.

"Before I got into the roller derby I was this shy, nerdy girl who hid behind my glasses," said Ms. Sisson, 29, who is a computer technician at Tek Serve when she is not skating as the trash-talking Rolletta Lynn. "Now I can be a sexy, tough woman, and I have a closet full of miniskirts."

(I love the solo music project that 'Letta has started: Aero Wave.)

tags: roller derby, rollergirls, Gotham Girls Roller Derby, Rolletta Lynn