Beach Day! — A Quick Look at the Remodeled Rockaway Beach Skatepark

“Wait…there’s beaches in New York?”

These are the sort of questions asked by people who have only looked at maps with pins to spots on them. Even then though…sheesh.

(And yes, have heard this question posed more than a handful of times in life.)

For years, a beach trip with a pitstop to the Beach 91st skatepark has been a summer ritual. The park’s longstanding wooden incarnation, by modern standards, was shoddy. It looked exactly like the sort of beachfront skatepark you would’ve expected a city to build in 2004.

But it had charm. It had character. It was battered. It was beautiful.

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Bags of Sand

Broadcasting live from the Lefrak City building ♬ If you haven’t listened to it yet, the Bronze 56k radio mixtape is incredible. The music is mostly time-tested hits from their videos (including a F.C.C-mandated run-back of “Dap You Up“), but the commercials are gold. Laughed out loud 10+ times on first listen.

Listen to Hjalte’s beautiful voice on the latest episode of The Bunt ♥ Stingwater also made a GROeTH remix as an accompaniment to the interview.

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Wifi Lit

Photo via Max Hull

What in tarnation

With it being high season for trips out to Rockaway (back up to 92 degrees tomorrow…) that include a pitstop at the charmingly bad beach 90th skatepark, it is worth pointing out that the park just got a bunch of new ramps. Unclear as to whether it is better now or before. Hopefully, before the world ends, both the bowl and mini ramp there will get replaced with cement versions of the exact same thing.

Last week, Louis Vuitton became the second company in 2018 to reveal that it um, was “inspired by” the Osiris D3. The people need a documentary about Osiris.

Gangcorp threw a BBQ and best trick contest at L.E.S. Park on July 4th. Here’s the recap video.

“Best of all, skateboarding’s independent streak means it fosters a healthily rebellious worldview — no small accomplishment as our society drifts toward bland authoritarianism. To be sure, there is money to be made in ignoring this drift, in remaining beholden to libertarian corporatism.” Hanson O’Haver’s “A Crime and a Pastime” piece looks at the underbelly of the skateboard business and its eerie house-of-cards-isms.

…anndd Boil the Ocean has some red pill / blue pill thing about Steely Dan songs, alternate realities, Scott Johnston’s Let the Horns Blow part, and idk man.

New London clip from the POP boys. That nosegrind revert / 3x flat tricks / switch nosegrind revert line reminds me of something that would’ve been in an old 411.

Another volume of Elkin raw tapes, this time with Dre and Josh cameos ♥

Frankie Spears is the first person to get a clip on that new-ish Battery Park double-set.

Some Canadians offer up one of the first entries to what will no doubt be an eventful “Summer Trip to New York” clip season. What % of people appearing in S.T.T.N.Y. clips do you think end up moving here? Thirty five? Eighty?

The rail is back in front of the ledge over the six at FedEx.

Quote of the Week: “Party footage only counts in nightvision.” — Pryce Holmes

Would embed something from Beast Mode 2, but this about covered it.

The Age of Information — A Young Bench’s Strange, Erotic Journey From Williamsburg to Far Rockaway

rockaway

Tuesday, June 21, 3:02 P.M: Despite tweeting plans of an eight-hour binge that would involve bouncing around screens at the 42nd Street AMC theater, the QS office decided that the national holiday would be best spent on the beaches of Rockaway.

Tuesday, June 21, 7:18 P.M: As the sun began to set, we set our sights on the Beach 91st skatepark. Objectively speaking, it might be the worst skatepark in New York, but we’re great at finding charm in awful things. The park has the special distinction of 1) Being a Hurricane Sandy survivor, 2) An appearance in Phil Rodriguez’s Caviar part, 3) Unlike pretty much every skatepark in New York, it contains what a 2013 Quartersnacks comment dubbed “A STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGE.”

Tuesday, June 21st, 7:30 P.M: Sadness begins to set as most parties present did not bring ideal footwear for skateboarding or non cruiser boards. Said sadness is largely due to recurring observations about how fun and ideal of a height the aforementioned “STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGE” is.

Tuesday, June 21st, 7:34 P.M: Quartersnacks art director, Emilio Cuilan (celebrating a birthday today btw), makes an observation that “I feel like I skated that ledge before, but it was at another spot.”

Tuesday, June 21st, 7:58 P.M: An iPhone photograph of Genesis Evans (of “I didn’t know I was beast until I varial flipped a trash can“-notoriety) performing a backside 180 5-0 grind is taken.

Wednesday, June 22nd, 8:42 P.M: Over 24 hours after the fact, that photograph of Genesis Evans is posted on the Quartersnacks Instagram account, with a note that the trick on display did not occur in Calabasas, and was not at 4 P.M.

Wednesday, June 22, 9:35 P.M: Sognar and Trife alumnus, William McFeely confirms Mr. Cuilan’s suspicions from the day before that perhaps the bench on display had lived life elsewhere via his Instagram account, “@billymcfeely”: “Still don’t understand how the bqe bench got to far rock away.”

Wednesday, June 22, 10:00 P.M: A comprehensive individual with the IG handle “@timandvicstagram” clears the air regarding the bench’s shaky past: “@billymcfeely there was talk way back when that all the ‘skate’ objects under the BQE were under imminent threat of being destroyed by the DOT/DOS. In fact, at one point, one of those agencies actually followed through and began to destroy the bank to bank there. The builder of the bench, instead of waiting for said agencies to make quick work of the bench, decided to move the bench to the Far Rock park after the original got wiped out by Sandy. It just so happened that the park was looking for donations, and through a friend of the OG skate community in NYC, arranged for the bench’s new home at B91. And that my friend is how the “BQE bench” got out to Far Rockaway. And f you absolutely must know how it physically arrived at B91, it arrived by a pick up truck.”

Wednesday, June 22, 10:08 P.M: Mr. McFeely thanks “@timandvicstagram” for the comprehensive response.

The more you know, yaknow ? ;)