The QS Year in Review Countdown: 15-11

Took last week off for some administrative duties. Previously: Part one, part two.

15. Le Basket Discontinues Outdoor Seating

It has been observed that skateboarders are the original gentrifiers. The undesirable corners of society are familiar territories to us, especially if they have something we want. And what do we, Skateboarders: The Original Gentrifiers™, want more than a place to get drunk? A place to get drunk in public, naturally.

Of course we’ll sit in plain view on Broadway, looking completely unemployable with our boards stacked along the wall, and the aluminum remnants of six six-packs teetering off the table. It wasn’t long until others took notice of the cheap real estate, and started closing in. By 2010, we were sharing ~fifteen seats with ~fifty bike messengers. By 2012, NYU students with a thirst for Magic Hats priced us out. In 2015, the party was shut down, but we barely noticed.

14. Spicing Up Bar Hops

Bar hopping, in both forms, gets redundant. Nobody remembers the fourth bar of the night, or the fourth bar hop in a video part. Hop enough bars and our eyes start to glaze over. It takes something special for them to stand out: an ensemble of friendly half-naked women, Josh Wilson dropping off a curb a mere millisecond before he pops an ollie, a Cosmo that is absolutely ~♥ 2 die 4 ♥~, or the reigning Q.S.S.O.T.Y. shooting his board through a bare minimum of an opening.

13. The Houston & A Spot

Every stickered up automobile of skateboarders to sit at the westbound light on Houston and Avenue A has looked at this natural obstacle course, and ran down the multitude of shit wrong with it: the grate before it, you gotta wait for the store to close, someone has to watch foot traffic on Avenue A, the curb right after the bar, etc. It’s been claimed for years, and 2015 was the one where the claims came to fruition.

12. R.I.P. Hooters Rail

For whatever reason, ever since Rodney Torres first skated it in 2002, the Hooters Rail has remained a brand name attraction. People kept track of the tricks that went down on it, would ask for directions to it during the peak Ziegfeld years (“that double-kinked rail against the wall is around here, right?”), and there were more than a few stories of people nearly dying on it (locking in one truck on the sloped part + one truck on the kink = front flip down five stairs to flat.)

This was in spite of the fact that maybe two tricks were ever even possible on it (ok fine, nollie 5050.) Footage on Hooters didn’t begin to evolve until this final year of its existence, when people started doing the noseslides and 5050s of the past decade, switch.

11. New York Mag Does Some Dating Research

It seems that despite a spotty work history, perpetually comma-less bank balances, questionable hygiene, and a willingness to abandon any semblance of romance for the chance to pile into a van with a dozen dudes and drive to a hump of concrete under a bridge somewhere — skaters are still getting laid.

“How?” is a question that many confused, lovelorn men who can’t kickflip (or self-reflective skateboarders themselves) are asking. NY Mag took this conundrum to task this year, with an analytic fervor not seen since the controversial Miss Behave days. These ladies revealed that our infatuation with what other boys do with their feet makes us come off as sexually non-threatening and #hot — even if the threat of petty larceny still looms heavy in the shadows.

Also: $700 reward for any information leading to the discovery of who stole the $700.

Bonus Mini Five — The Most Overhead Complaints By #Old #Guys in 2015
5. “You guys actually like Bieber?”
4. “Blind Jeans weren’t even cool the first time around.”
3. “Cooper Park is already too crowded.”
2. “Why didn’t they cut the line before the guy took three pushes to do a flatground trick in the middle of the street?”
1. Young Thug