The Year in Spot Checks

chuck venn

Diagram via Charles Rivard, PhD.

Gaps between generations have seemingly insignificant signifiers. For instance, a lot of people now in their teens or even early twenties have lived lives where landlines were a mere novelty. They never had to call their friend’s house and ask for them to be put on the phone (“Stacy can’t talk now, she’s grounded.”) Spending even a few years in landline purgatory, dealing with the anxiety of the unknown on the other end, helped shape your personality in one way or another. We like to think that it helped us relate to people older than us in a closer way than those 5-7 years our junior.

The same could be said of those currently in their late-twenties/early-thirites and spots in New York. Though the much mythologized “Banks during the day, Astor in between, midtown all night”-days never happened for us, we know what it’s like to, you know, at one point have skated a row of marble ledges in lower Manhattan that you didn’t get kicked out of. Kids who grew up meeting at 12th & A or even L.E.S. Park don’t know what that’s like. Those days are a decade back in the past. On the flipside, when a twenty-year-old responds to your “Where you at?” text with “This spot on Mott and Prince,” you know not to get excited because it means they’re more than likely skating a spoonful of asphalt to a traffic barrier.

That midway point gives us a decent perspective upon which to observe the current state of “spots” in New York. Unlike the Dogg Pound, the #tfreport hashtag has not been active. Thus we are sad to announce that there is no “Year in T.F. Obstacles” for this year (previously: 2014, 2013, 2012.) Instead, the QS Twitter began compiling a visual journal of the stuff that people skated, sorta tried to skate, sorta kinda considered skating, or sorta kinda only joked about skating throughout 2015.

January 16:

jan 16

Apparently, when you skate this thing at the start of the year, you have an A+ one ahead of you #respect #bieber #neverforget

March 6:

mar 6

April 10:

apr 10

A petition to put a marble curb in every skatepark in the world.

April 16:

apr 16

May 8:

may 8

May 9:

may 9

May 24:

may 24

May 30:

may 30

June 3:

jun 3

As you might be able to tell, we’re not in Kansas The Lower anymore…

June 11:

jun 11

June 13:

jun 13

June 14:

jun 14

June 25:

jun 25

July 10:

jul 10

July 25:

jul 25

July 27:

jul 27

July 30:

jul 30

August 2:

aug 2

Apparently, someone actually tried skating this thing, which resulted in it getting knobbed. Crazy.

August 5:

aug 5

August 8:

aug 8

August 24:

aug 24

August 25:

aug 25

September 9:

sep 9

FYI: Puleo ollied this in a part somewhere.

September 28:

sep 28

September 30:

sep 30

October 2:

oct 2

October 4:

oct 4

October 11:

oct 11

October 13:

oct 13

My favorite ledge on the entire planet ♥♥♥

October 18:

oct 18

November 6:

nov 6

Hey dude, we’re trying to skate the ledge…

November 7:

nov 7

No, you won’t be able to skate this thing.

November 21:

nov 21

November 22:

nov 22

Stumps are the new ledges.

November 23:

nov 23

November 28:

nov 28

November 29:

nov 29

December 10:

dec 10

December 12:

dec 12

December 16:

dec 16

3 Comments

  1. Just wondering if this is the same site where they have the rollerblading updates? I thought it was this but no I have to look at skhateboardin bustin nuts on tree humps

  2. hey I’m from the future and that ledge in Times Square is going to get skated in 2020.

    also Kadow releases a subversive soty winning part in 2018


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