Spots: Midtown Manhattan — Theater District / Times Square Area

Update — February 2011: They moved a bunch of planters here, making the bank approachable straight on, as opposed to from a tight curve in. There’s one main pillar and a few trash cans in the way, but otherwise the spot is more spacious.

Spot: Without Giovanni Moya, this spot would be a desolate landscape of dim, cold, and unwelcoming granite sitting as an intermediatiary force for New Yorkers to meander through, in and out of their offices, on a daily basis. Its slopes would remain unfettered from the former greatness exhibited by a short Ecuadorian. Its metal surfaces would still be unscathed from the wrath of his urethane. Geo Moya, changed all of this, now and forever.

Geo Moya is a party boy. It is neccesary to grasp his dynamic lifestyle before coming to terms with what sort of standards you need to have for yourself before you can skate here without getting beaten up for blasphemy by Ecuadorian locals looming in the corners with bandanas and waterlogged two-by-fours. Moya once worked two jobs — Starbucks and Supreme. Merging capuccino and concaves. Coffee grinds and crooked grinds. After work, he would depart from his W-2 forms and pay stubs to voyage out into the streets. Slapping the backsides of unassuming asian girls, drowning his liver with Hennessy, and dancing the night away to only the finest of dancehall music. Would he sleep? No. Well, actually, kind of. If 45 minutes at the door of your next job counts for anything.

His days off? Well, they were spent skateboarding. If he woke up in time. Before the skate-friendly sun was eclipsed by the vice-friendly moon, leading him into the decadent socialite lifestyle rivaling only that of Marcello Rubini. But Moya’s stomping ground was not the Via Venetto or upscale Roman estates, but the Lower East Side, an ensemble of well-concealed Dominican strip clubs dispursed throughout Queens, and naturally, Santos on Lafayette Street from Friday night to early Saturday morning when Elephant Man and Sizzla might as well have been his two best friends.

One day, he did wake up on time. In Cherry Park, a well known locale of southern California where he proceeded to inward heelflip into a 5-0 grind and get a handjob from a local broad a mere few minutes later.

Another day, he woke up in time as well, and decided today he would meet his destiny. He ventured out to the Paramount Plaza, a towering skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. He proceeded to pour his energy into hurling his hispanic body down five stairs, onto a metal lip extending from a steep hubba ledge with a twenty-foot drop over the other end, down an additional fifteen steps. The nose of his skateboard made it down, and his triumphant physical embodiment of greatness accompanied it, with a great smile that shined across Ecuador’s coastline throughout the following week. Reports have said that the sun did not set in Ecuador for the entire month after Moya landed this trick.

If you lack any of the aforementioned qualities, there is also a bank here, onto which you can ollie up, and proceed to do a trick along the lip. It has a tight runway that involves dodging planters, and is rather steep, so it is best left to those with quick feet. Be careful that your weight does not lean too far over the edge, as there is a five foot drop onto a sidewalk filled with tourists below.

Bust — ♦♦ / Occasional: Surprisingly, the security guards leave their front desk post here after 8 P.M. and on weekends, so it is fair game after that time.

Location: 50th Street and Seventh Avenue. Take the 1 train to 50th Street and the spot is right outside at the top of the steps.

Pictures (Click to Enlarge):