Spots: Midtown Manhattan — Gramercy, Kips Bay & Murray Hill

Spot: This is one of the few halfway decent rain spots you’ll find in Manhattan. Water still gets through, given the fact that the drainage pipes from the FDR Drive (the elevated part that covers the stuff in the parking lot) all lead here, but there are always sections of dryness that you can find. The spot is located throughout a parking lot, so given your luck, there could always be a car parked in front of something. There’s an assortment of concrete ledges throughout the entire spot, ranging in height and whether they’ve been waxed or not. The central part of the spot (the part that’s actually on 20th Street and Avenue C) has a ledge just above 3-feet in height, which people typically set up a junk ramp to skate, and another ledge, around a foot-and-a-half in height 30 or 40 feet before it. There is a handful of slanted concrete ledges that act more like concrete flatbars than actual ledges provided you’re grinding the beveled edge of them. There’s two with ends, both frontside and backside, and two others which go over a minor manual pad — maybe 4 feet in length, to give you a gap to grind over.

More towards 23rd street, there’s a curb height, seven-foot long manual pad, a double sided, two-foot wide, metal curb and another two-foot-high ledge on top of the manual pad. Besides that, there’s always a bunch of cones, random bumps and curb cuts, scraps of wood to set up, and smooth asphalt both under and outside of the bridge to practice flatground tricks on.

Bust — ♦ / Rare: You should not get kicked out of here.

Location: 20th/23rd Street and Avenue C. Take the 4, 5 or 6 to 23rd Street and skate east until you hit the water. Or you could take the L to 1st Avenue and skate east on 14th Street until you reach Avenue C. Make a left on Avenue C and skate until you reach the water.

Pictures (Click to Enlarge):