Avec the Homie

John Shanahan starts a line by rolling off the amphitheater at the Citi Field benches, props a tile up to the second level of the CBS benches, and kickflips off the grate side over the Crosby Street bump-to-bar in his latest DC part, in case you haven’t caught it yet.

Everybody’s unloading their fakie 5-0 flip out clips at Big Screen now that the spot’s knobbed 😔 Jasper Stieve and Neema Joorabchi come through with a new one for Free, featuring watery gap to grinds and exemplary frontside heelflip form.

“I think it’s safe to say that the range for a proper ledge height in a skate park setting should be between 13 1/2 and 14 1/4 inches.” Dave Caddo went around the city measuring the dimensions of some of its most oft-skated ledges, from the 12-inch-high Reggaeton fence ledge or the 19-inch-high Flushing Meadows Park Ledges. He compiled his findings over on his Substack, Skait Brane.

More »

Future Nostalgia — John Shanahan’s ‘Pocket Dial’ Part

What’s a random soundbyte from a skate video that you and/or your friends have an allegiance to?

For a decent part of the QS office, it’s the “N.Y. kid!” that Mike Wright drops after backside 180ing off a ledge attached to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and into E. 51st Street from 2001’s E.S.T. 2immortalized here in a 16-year-old YouTube upload. I think Thando said it after landing a switch back heel down a three stair in an edit from a while back. (Pretty sure that soundbyte was in a Bronze edit too?)

Seeing John Shanahan nollie 180 that very same gap — which honestly maybe hasn’t appeared in a video for 20 years — right in front of a cop’s face sent that very same echo through the mind. That ledge, that angle, that Armani Exchange across the street… iconic.

More »

Skaters Set Eyes on Hell-like Planet That Rains Lava at Night

Photo via @whatisnewyork

Rest in Peace, New York City payphones ❤️

Why go to Greece like all the other skate crews, when you can go to a hell-like planet that rains lava in the night footy? (Nah, jk – Greece is pretty dope.)

We’re up to 80 spots! Just added Dustin Eggeling’s “Reggaeton” part for Village Psychic (as in…the ledges, not the music genre) to the QS One-Spot Part Map. Includes guest tricks from Kyler Garrison, Brian Scherer + Keith Denley.

Frankie Decker talks Vegas, late shuvs, and the “Evan Frankie” ender in his new interview for Heckride. (Does anyone remember what edit the backside flip down the Canal and Division set at the Manhattan Bridge is?)

More »

Banished To Our Memories — Rest in Peace to Forbidden Banks

The Forbidden Banks are no more.

There has seldom been a Manhattan spot that incited thoughts of “Well, what did you think was going to happen when you built this?” quite like Forbidden Banks did.

Located between an apartment building and the Jamaican Consulate, this maybe five-foot-high brick embankment lead up to an uninviting wooden platform. The spot was nestled between so many tall buildings that it rarely encountered natural light; there are far better parks nearby for an office worker to enjoy lunch, and few people ever chilled here.

The plaza did, however, invite an unintentional activity.

This spot had been around since many of us were kids skating midtown for the first time. It earned its name because you could consider yourself lucky if you got more than a try-and-a-half. How they hadn’t skateblocked it after decades of trench warfare with security and doormen was one of New York skateboarding’s great mysteries.

More »

Bump To Supply Chain

“I realized so many stories or moments that I’ve lived don’t have photos to accompany them. I wasn’t equipped, equipment-wise or mentally, to decide, ‘This moment is a photo,’ and I need to go out of my way to get it no matter what people think.” The Slam City Skates blog has an interview with French photographer, Benjamin Deberdt, about coming to New York to shoot photos of Keenan, Huf and the Cardona brothers in the nineties. (He shot the above Huf photo.)

Added Vu Skateshop’s “Lyric” video — filmed entirely at the Lyric Monument in Baltimore — to the QS One-Spot Part Map.

More »