Skate Spot Porn: Across the Street From Black Hubba

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Remember that spot across from Black Hubba? It had a some rails people haven’t skated since the 90s and a good marble ledge over three steps. After 9/11, they put security booths at every corner (obviously for way more important reasons than skateboarding), which made it an immediate bust with a good chance of a fine and board confiscation. Well, it’s looking good after a recent facelift: Ledge view, curved bench and ledge view, circular manny pad view.

Just count on it remaining a tease, because it’s part of a federal building. But hey, Jake Johnson had enough time to do that narrow wall ollie twice (same building) and security eased up on skating the Courthouse Drop these past few years, so you never know (though it’s a better chance that some moron gets arrested for skating there the first weekend the barricades come down.)

Other recent spot developments:

The bank to grated green ledge on the eastside / the most blown out spot of the past two years is gone.

Contrary to initial reports, the Chase three-up-five-down might be getting restored to its original surface material.

Uptown isn’t hyped on that West 4th Street dancing.

Lower Manhattan: Now With Even Less Stuff to Skate!

Just when the curb up top was starting to get waxed…

The Chase two-up-five-down is a wrap. Ain’t no economic downturn if banks can toss perfectly good marble into a dumpster for a mere facelift. Give us an empty lot and a dumpster full of white marble that’s bound to end up in a landfill, and we’ll make a better “skatepark” than anything currently in New York.

Chase was the last spot in lower Manhattan that had remained a downtown mission mainstay and unmodified since the nineties (and even that might not be entirely true, since the up-ledge Peter Bici 5050s in Mixtape that ran parallel to the handicap ramp just before the steps began got switched up over ten years ago.) It was also one of the few things downtown that had nothing wrong with it, unless you count that flagpole right after the five. Maybe they’ll resurface it and keep the same set-up. Maybe they’ll build a gigantic Philly step with a metal edge and then knob it.

Suski was the only person to ollie the double-set, right? And Zered and Kyle Iles were the only two to get manual tricks across the entire thing? Also, Wenning probably had the best line here…quick set-up + capri tech drawstring pants + no push = win.

Turn On the Lights

It may look like a skatepark, but you can’t skate here.” — Volume 2

Four decades ago, Louis Kahn unintentionally designed an incredible skate spot, which is just now being opened to the public. The chances of ever being able to skate there for an excess of twenty seconds are likely non-existant.

“I get mad bodied.” Kevin Tierney stretching the grammatical boundaries of modern New York slang, and out-of-towners raising awareness of the disdain for “Two times if you know me” greetings in the northeast, in yet another “Summer in New York” clip.

Island Music is a video entirely filmed in Long Island by the same crew that brought you Missing Persons (which strangely disappeared from YouTube) last year. Based off the teaser, it looks like it’s going for a similar black-and-white jazzy feel. Anything inspired by the by the best skate montage in skate montage history is cool.

Skateboarding, fiction writing, and uh, Mike Carroll’s Modus Operandi part.

Where would east coast skateboarding be without the wallie? This clip has a lot of wallies, wallrides, and other NY/NJ/PA skate hallmarks.

Apple could call the iPhone 4S a different name, and millions of people would still ditch the current model for it. Crazy.

Is Palace the next Apple? The next Supreme? The next Menace? The next Maybach Music? Because this is wild (£137 = ~$220.) Also in the realm of skate-gear resale values, Lamborghinis apparently appreciate in value.

Events: 1) Polar Skateboards, Thrasher, Converse, KCDC, etc. are holding a Bum Rush the Spot event at the BQE Lot off Lorimer this Saturday, September 22 from 4 to 6 P.M., followed by a Polar art show at KCDC. 2) File under “Demos Grown-Ups Might Attend” — Cliché and DQM are holding a demo at the L.E.S. Park on Thursday, so you could see French Mariano skate in real life.

Spot Updates: 1) The remaining ledges at Seaport that were not knobbed, have all been barricaded off as of a few days ago. Again, New York sucks sometimes. Developers are idiots. Spot’s done. 2) Those new good material / bad set-up ledges on 53rd and Sixth got knobbed. 3) Oh, and those new high wooden blocks by the Banks / Fulton Street Burger King (R.I.P.) also got knobbed.

Our homie Ren made his first music video. Unlike Black Donald Trump, he doesn’t skate, but his video is chill. Everybody raps.

And once again: If you can’t ollie up it, don’t ollie down it.

Quote of the Week:


29 Random Things That Happened at #NYFW.” Check #9. We out here.

‘NO ARM & HAMMER IN MY HANNAH MONTANA’

Everyone skateboards now! Miley Cyrus is into it! Rihanna skates! This girl skates! Everyone skates! What a fun way to get your cardio in! Sk8 or die, girls! Derek Zoolander |*ngb**rds! When is the male model game of S.K.A.T.E? My money’s on Ted.

12th & A lives. There was an East Village community board meeting this past Thursday to decide its fate, and skateboarding prevailed. It’s open 5-8 P.M. on weekdays, 12-8 P.M. on Saturdays, and unfortunately closed on Sundays. Better than nothing. Hopefully, it will open earlier during late-fall and winter weekdays, since it gets dark at 4:30. (Also, there’s a new ~15-foot-long round flatbar there, and they sawed the legs off the larger picnic table to make it “Cali size.”)

“Gyro” is a montage filmed in New York over the course of two weeks via the same crew that brought you the SF-based Chunder and VHS1K videos.

Some kid wallrid off that giant bottle sculpture near 57th Street on the Westside Highway, which is pretty gnarly. It would make a great photo. Photo here. That trick, and six minutes of other NY/NJ/Philly-based footage in this “Gravity Hammers” clip.

Death Video throwaway clips set to the soothing sounds of 2 Chainz.

The first summer edition “Diamond Days” video (#62) is now online. It utilizes the early frontrunner for “Song of the Summer 2012,” Cash Out’s “Cashing Out” A.K.A. “Yeah, it’s the ‘Racks’ of 2012, but it’s not as good as ‘Racks.'” Grown & Sexy S.O.T.S. early honorable mention: Usher “Climax.”

Nate Rojas’ part from Five on That is on YouTube. He 5050s the kinked handrail outside the Tribeca jail skatepark.

“Oh no, I’m completely fine. I do this all the time. Have a nice day.”

The Museum of Modern Art in Finland claims to currently have “the world’s first large scale skatable sculptural installation” on its premises. Stadium did that, like, last year, bro. Though to be fair, the Finnish one is a superior “skateable sculpture” for “normal” people and not Zered Bassett.

SPOT UPDATES: 1) The rail gap and keyhole ledge at CBS are now blocked off by scaffolding. 2) The gas station on 15th & 10th with the flat rails got torn down. Near the end of this clip, Gigliotti does a line there in a controversial hat. (Aren’t there ~six gas stations south of 96th Street? Why the hell are they tearing them down?) 3) Those awful marble windowsill ledges on 4th and Bowery got knobbed.

Quote of the Week:


Straight bling-bling, whip it with an antenna

Links From the BBQ

Scott Johnston at the building across from the New York Stock Exchange. Sometime in the nineties.

Monday links on a Tuesday…

The rumor mill about Zoo York phasing out of skateboarding has been building for quite some time, but it’s finally official. Zered Bassett explains what happened, and why everyone except pretty much Brandon Westgate is now off the team. (Black Dave, Kevin Tierney, and the AMs are all still on.)

The team at Live Skateboard Media remixed Lucas Puig’s Transworld pro spotlight part (the part that brought back the noseslide) by throwing in rap music, Biggie interviews, those ever-so-popular VHS glitch effects, etc. Better than the original, though not the French Montana x French Mariano part we all envisioned.

On Memorial Day, the Green Diamond put together a tribute clip to Slappy Cove.

Random Flip Cam footage from the Flipmode Squad riding around Queens and occasionally skateboarding.

Some kids take the PATH train into the city, skate 75% of the spots between 110th and 140th, edit it to ASAP Rocky, and upload it to YouTube.

You know those waxed concrete triangular banks that were across the street from the Brooklyn Banks at the Verizon Building? Well, they tore them all out, except for the one at the end.

Rick Ross publicly stated that he had $10,000 for anyone who ran across the court during a Heat Finals game (sorry Boston fans, but you guys are just as insane as the overly optimistic Knicks fans from four weeks ago if you think you have a shot) wearing nothing but a MMG shirt. Some dude did it during a second round playoff game, got arrested, charged, held on $6,500 bond, and didn’t even get his money, presumably because he didn’t read the part about it needing to be a Finals game.

Quote of the Week:


Get some work done this week. Have a good one.