Rained Out in Brooklyn

August 13th, 2010 | 11:56 am | Footage | 2 Comments

Nugget under the BQE – Photos by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

Yesterday morning’s rain helped cool the city down a much needed fifteen degrees, but unfortunately lingered around intermittently for the remainder of the day. By the time the ground dried up, and the coffee drinkers were two or three cups deep into the routine, it was already late-afternoon.

The initial plan was to hit the Fish Gap, the Fort Greene monument, and an ensemble of cutty little nooks and crannies you could find cruising around Dumbo with a discerning eye, but the weather didn’t really look upon this plan with an equal sense of enthusiasm, making the Fish Gap live up to its name as the drizzle helped coat every needed surface for skateboarding with a glossy layer of fish guts and water. That pizza place across the street is pretty much the only good part about ever having to go there with someone, and a much-needed reward if you have to sit there and endure the smell for an excess of five minutes. So the mission got tweaked a bit to focus on food.

Below is a clip of our refuge at the Fat Kid Spot / The Dill Spot under the BQE, just off Tillary. It was the only real skating that managed to get done, given that whenever the ground looked close to seventy-five percent dry, the rain would start back up again. Luckily it wasn’t heavy enough to drench the spot, and the place still remains to be the only good place to skate in New York amidst a rain shower, neglecting the fact that with the recent demise of the Chinatown Ledges and the Brooklyn Banks, it can safely lay claim to the title of being the dirtiest spot in the city.

There’s a new crew of nine-year-old derelicts from the projects over there that will claim you’re “on their territory” too. Their crew’s name is Crazy Rocks. Or something like that.

Uptown, Baby

August 12th, 2010 | 1:01 pm | Footage | 7 Comments

Danny Lebron – Hydrant Ollie at Lenox Ledges – Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

Tuesday’s session was a bit more aligned with the routine mentioned in the previous, accompanying post, granted that it involved the common NY trip stop at the Chinatown Double Set, and the authentic experience of getting kicked out of every other spot within the Financial District in a matter of minutes. At least the security guard at World Trade openly admitted to how much he hates his job due to the monotony of kicking out skateboarders day in and day out.

The reason a lot of New York skate trips fall short is because tour guides seem reluctant to take their visitors on fifty block goosechases up and down hills in ninety-five degree heat, which is what the majority of Wednesday was spent doing. From Lenox and 110th, to 122nd, to 135th and 5th, to 137th and Broadway, all the way back down to the lower hundreds on the westside. The running joke towards the end of the day was a plan to basically start skating south on Broadway from 105th with the intention of making it all the way back downtown, without utilizing the assistance of the Taxi Commission or the MTA, and see what cross street these guys could make it to. The most common bet was 86th Street, but the whole plan wound up falling through. (Probably in fear of someone dying from dehydration or a heat stroke.)

One of my favorite quotes about skateboarding (and related to New York, in a way, if you know how to properly contextualize it) is by Jerry Mraz, when he said, “Europe is cheating” in an interview. As someone who has never skated Barcelona, Milan, or any of those fancy ledges in Europe, and grew up skating Hoboken Ledges (which had manageable, but not the most flawless of ground), it really makes me wonder what to expect of any of those household name ledge spots in Europe, Australia, or say, Shanghai (AKA the “new” Barcelona), especially when someone who’s skated all of them claims that Lenox Ledges has bad ground. Shane O’Neil’s overall verdict on Amsterdam Rail was not favorable, and most people, probably even Chaz Ortiz and Rodney Torres, the two crown holders of the spot, would not disagree with that observation, but Lenox Ledges? Kids in nearby cities (Pittsburgh, Baltimore, etc.) that I have met have an odd conception of New York as some sort of ledge mecca, but given that Lenox is our best spot for such obstacles, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how far from the truth that notion is. Boston might be the safest bet as far as ledges go.

Anyway, below is a brief clip of the day from skating around Uptown, not really including any of the Quartersnacks Uptown trademarks that Ben Nazario and Watermelon Alex have made famous around here, because it takes a special brand of insanity to skate a pile of rocks streaming down Amsterdam Avenue (more on that later.) The day was spent at the more recognizable spots, including a pointless trip up to City College to remind everyone that isn’t the 2003 version of Jerme Rogers, that it is the sketchiest foot-and-a-half high hubba ledge known to man.

First Try Wednesdays

August 11th, 2010 | 9:56 pm | Footage | 2 Comments

All photography by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

There has been a recent development that has lead G-Man and Marquez E.T. — two of the QS roster’s star players — to “chill” as they await trial on felony charges involving an incident where they allegedly tried to steal a $15,000 couch from the lobby of an Upper Eastside apartment after a girl had kicked them out of her home for being violent and intoxicated, all for the purpose of skating over it in the middle of Park Avenue. Their lawyers have specified that the allegations are a case of mistaken identity and their legal team is working around the clock to ensure that they will be vindicated by a jury of their peers sometime in the early Fall.

However, due to these legal troubles, and the overall susceptibility of getting into even more trouble that these two have grown infamous for, they will not be skating until after the trial. This, of course, leaves us in a tight spot where two of the largest salaries on the roster have been benched until the final fourth of the season. They have hinted at returning to the board prior to this, but there has been no definitive information as of yet.

We have been known to make the best out of tough situations, and pending their inevitable acquittal, we have formed a temporary team that includes Youness Amrani, Daniel Lebron, Shane O’Neil, and perhaps several surprise guests down the line to fill in the gaps on the roster for a week or so.

While this pairing with traditionally talented skateboarders may seem unlikely for a website that tends to value the front shove-it maneuver over pretty much every handrail trick ever done, and one that manages to find mildly relevant ways of interjecting a tidbit about Robbie Gangemi into articles about June’s Maloof contest, we’re going to try particularly hard to make the next week not look like every single video clip that surfaces on the internet of people in New York at the end of August. In other words, we’re trying a bit to not do the rudimentary routine: “Ok, here’s the Courthouse Drop, Black Hubba is across the street, here’s the Banks nine, here’s Pyramid Ledges. Ok, cool. So, meet at the Fish in an hour?”

And if you don’t buy that, maybe the skateboarding will speak for itself, seeing as how Nugget somehow (well, maybe “somehow” isn’t the right word) threw his board down yesterday, took a push and a half, and switch flipped the Chinatown Double Set in one try.