The Events That Defined New York City Skateboarding in 2012: 5-1

seaport

2012 is just about a wrap. Have a happy and safe New Year’s. Previously: #s 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6 + 2012 Predictions, The Year in T.F. Obstacles.

5. New York Knobs a Skatepark

With the knobbing of a plaza made up of ledges better than any ledge in a New York skatepark, we reached a new level of absurdity. Previously, tearing out a strip of ground in front of the Small Banks, installing chessboards to entice average citizens and failing miserably was the lowpoint. This spot’s demise more-or-less ended the days of skating Water Street for an entire afternoon, as there’s no longer a “great” spot on the east side of downtown. People now skate skateparks, former C-list spots like Gay Ledges, or went back to what they were doing before Seaport got built, which is skating flat at T.F. If there’s one consolation prize from this situation, it’s that all those overzealous security guards, who would angrily warn everyone of the day when the spot would be knobbed, got fired because there was nothing left for them to do.

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New Year’s Eve Links

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Philadelphia is on the verge of having to close 37 public schools. It’s a good thing Philly’s City Council spends time on real issues like raising skateboard-related fines.

Pappalardo’s eight seconds of footage in the Pretty Sweet bonus features.

The end-of-the-year issue of The NYT Magazine has a feature on influential people who passed away in 2012. One of them profiles Larry Stevenson, who invented kicktails on modern skateboards, and is thus responsible for every big flip in Pretty Sweet and every crooked grind combo in Parental Advisory.

Speaking of Pretty Sweet, Manolo Tapes put together a funny, all lifestyle rendition of the video entitled Pretty Soft. The magic of editing…

Joe Cups put together a Super-8 / VHS New York video of this past summer that features many names from the Lurkers franchise.

This James Pitonyak part is gnarly. He destroys just about every spot in Trenton.

The first, all Mini DV installment of the Death Video series. Not to be confused with Death Skateboards; it’s just a bunch of kids ripping around the city and indulging confrontation with security more than they probably should.

An iPhone Christmas clip from the young’ns.

Brian Brown and the 2nd Nature crew ripping around Westchester and Connecticut.

ICYMI: Billy McFeely in Outdated, Jason Carroll in Outdated, Forrest Edwards in Wild Power, and Ben Kadow in Mama’s Boys.

Matt Mooney put his abundance of free time into creating a Seinfeld Tumblr.

Spot Updates: Rolls-Royce is surrounded by scaffolding.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Darren Collison’s buzzer-beating, overtime-forcing desperation three v.s. Oklahoma City. J.R’s buzzer-beater v.s. the Suns was a leading candidate, but all Knicks plays from the past week got disqualified based on how hard they blew it against the Kings on Friday.

Quote of the Week:

hsu skate videos

— Via the Skateboarder Tumblr. Not sure of its origins or how old it is. Solid analogy.

Happy New Year.

The Events That Defined New York City Skateboarding in 2012: 10-6 + 2013 Predictions

lou ruining skateboarding

70% chance of snow for the last weekend of 2012. New Year’s Eve plans? Nets head coach suggestions? Indoor skate spot recommendations? Highest bidder for an unauthorized House of Vans key duplicate? Who’s excited for the new season of Girls? Previously: #s 25-21, 20-16, 15-11. Expect 5-1 on New Year’s Eve.

10. Lurker Lou Ruins Skateboarding

Skateboarders hate everything. It becomes more evident by the day, as the anonymity provided by Hella Clips comments supplants the Slap forum as the skateboard internet’s epicenter of negativity. But we won’t stand for that negativity in our reality shows! This past spring, Lurker Lou — who, looking at it as objectively as possible, didn’t “hate” *that* bad — spewed his bearded criticisms on a bunch of youngsters looking to “make it” via the “One in a Million” reality show fiasco. He hurt feelings, crushed dreams, snapped boards and ruined any fun there was to be had in riding a skateboard for the remainder of human existence, which unfortunately, did not end on December 21st. (No existence is better than existence on an earth with Lou.)

What a jerk!

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Merry Christmas

east 73rd st

Merry Christmas everybody. Here’s our annual mostly midtown / Christmas light footage / non-rap clip. Comes complete with two backpack lines and more tricks on three/four stair handrails than ever before. “I done seen everything today!”

In case you guys didn’t know, during annual Christmas music research for this clip, the fact that the Ying Yang Twins have a Christmas album came to light. Needless to say, it’s incredible. At least for the first minute or so. (Here’s another good one.)

Features: Alexander Mosley, Black Dave A.K.A. Black Santa, Tyshawn Jones, TJ’s homie (sorry for not getting your name), Gavin Nolan, Eli Reed, Josh Velez, Ritch Swain, Roctakon, Pad Dowd, Ty Lyons, Tyler Tufty, Dustin Eggeling, Keith Denley, Sweet Waste, Pryce Holmes, Pat Edge, Torey Goodall, Brendan Carroll, Matthew Mooney, Jack Sabback, Kevin Tierney, Brian Clarke, and Andre Page.

Contributing filmers: Joe Bressler, Jeff Ricker, Andre Page, Josh Velez. Thank you.

Alternate YouTube Link. Just an FYI for mobile users: YouTube will *not* play the video on iPhones, etc. because of third party content (i.e. uncleared music.) It should, however, work on Vimeo. YouTube poorly words their disable notice by making it seem like the uploader is preventing it for mobile playback as opposed to the company who owns the music.

This is the eighth one. In case you haven’t been keeping up, here are some relevant links to past Christmas clips: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005.

Now see, this is what the holidays are all about. Three buddies sitting around, chewing gum.

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“I got a man in Poughkeepsie who wants to talk with you.”

The site has been having intermittent server issues and downtime over the past several days. Everything should be back to normal now.

Past QS Christmas Clips: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005

Frozen in Carbonite composed an interesting venn diagram for Pretty Sweet and Parental Advisory, the two marquee skate videos of the holiday season. Though “current rap, unironically” might belong in the middle, as “2Pac Back” was Pretty Sweet‘s only current rap song, and it was utilized in an appropriate way.

In the spirit of list season, Boil the Ocean has begun to count down the top ten skate parts of 2012. Joseph Delgado’s 56k part took the tenth slot.

Speaking of which, the director behind “this year’s best-made video” put together a 56k-esque Bill Pierce part for Roger Skateboards.

Rob Harris is releasing a video entitled Dece Vid on January 20th with a full part of the most recent Yaje Popson footage and cameos from a bunch of others. Teaser here.

This new Skate Jawn montage may be the first skate clip with footage at Fulton Mall.

Rob Gonyon becoming irate with entitled New York bicyclists (seriously, that “DON’T YOU GUYS KNOW THIS IS A *BIKE* LANE?!?!”-contingent of society is the worst) and doing chill street lines.

Mark Suciu and friends at Lenox Ledges and other less-interesting destinations in New York. The switch powerslide at the Bronx Courthouse after the back 180 is impressive considering how tight that landing space is. Dude’s good.

Throwback: A 12-year-old Slicky Boy taunting Santacon idiots at Tompkins in 2007.

Yolo.”

New Chewy Canon part on Christmas?

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Gerald Henderson uses an invisible trampoline to dunk on a complacent-looking Dwight Howard. It would have been glorious if the Bobcats won this game.

Quote of the Week:

ha

Can someone please explain this Pheed thing? And will it ever get big enough for Facebook to pay $1 billion for it? What will you guys do then?