2018 feels like the first lllooonnnggg year in a while. Like, did the Cons video come out in 2016? But alas, we had to cuff up our macaroni denim before it went out of style, and recap just what the hell happened in this year that felt like three.
Past Editions: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
25. In An Increased Age of Angst, Kick-Outs Turn Avant Garde
It was inevitable that some demographic of skaters would grow up and begin to question their adolescent behavior. Trespassing, scuffing up ledges, disobeying authority, etc. are all crucial components of skateboarding, so if you want to be all “grown” about it and retread past necessary evils, that is your call.
But remember that when you’re writing a thinkpiece about whether pulling a barrier away from a security guard’s arms so someone could get that clip is taking it *too* far — they’re the ones throwing them back at us ;)
24. Chelsea Park F/W 2018
Security guards, public safety vans and police are well-worn adversaries of productivity on a skateboard, but this year, we were introduced to a new conspirator against our cause. Getting told we can’t skate somewhere is nothing new, except now the aggressor was someone we once foolishly assumed was …an ally.
Imagine how devastated we were to learn that the high fashion brands, stylists and models who only recently began embracing us on their highly coveted guest lists were doing so just because they wanted to take over all the skateparks for runway shows.
23. DC Shoes Makes a Left-Field Homage To Zoo York’s …Heads Video?
Traces of DNA from the 1990s’ most influential VHS tapes are never far off, even today. We saw bits of Time Code and Photosynthesis’ interludes in Quasi’s Mother, and pinches of Eastern Exposure in the new GX. DC, probably the most obvious trafficker of nineties’ nostalgia in 2018, dug deeper in the vintage VHS rack for their Street Sweeper video, ~70% of which was filmed in New York.
Cue the boop-bleep soundtrack, the rolled up swooshy cargoes, “diary of a summer” format, and return to some spots that probably haven’t been skated since the release of what most would agree is the third-best of the three original Zoo York videos.
Don’t know what Center For Disease Control pamphlet they pulled that willy grind nollie flip out on C.I.A. Ledge from though. Ew.
22. R.I.P. Saint Dymphnas A.K.A. Yellow Bar A.K.A. Same Difference
Just as Tompkins is a marriage of convenience, so was our patronage of Saint Dymphnas. Tompkins is easy, lazy, and if you don’t make it much further than past its fence, at least you can leave knowing you set the bar for that day pretty low. The same could be said of its nearest decent bar.
We’ll live. Probably.
21. A Rock-Solid Year For Glass Banks
Chrissay from earlier today 😝😝😝 pic.twitter.com/sogHBMa7Md
— Quartersnacks (@quartersnacks) January 22, 2018
The Courthouse Drop held a monopoly on hucking out of the equivalent of two-story building for the bulk of New York skate history. Except lately, unless you were T.J. and setting up a trash can before drifting into the abyss, a lot of the tricks down it started to look the same.
Never fear though, as a pair of glass bank spots (one in Battery Park, another in Long Island City) withstood their share of descents to street level this year, while handing out both arrests and injury.
20. Josh Kalis Offers A Lesson For the Ones That Got Away
Some well-intentioned soul has likely told you there are “plenty of fish in the sea” following a heartbreak. It may not be tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but that spark will find you again.
Josh Kalis slid in the QS comments this summer to tell the tale of how a short midtown slab of marble and its evil guardian had once broken his heart on a switch backside noseblunt in the late nineties, only for him to find a better match just a few blocks east twenty years later. Thanks Josh, for inspiring us to never give up on romance.
19. The Banks Die Again; Their Exterior Thrives
The D.O.T. patched up the holes in the fence, and we resumed to clinging onto a long-shot hope of them one day sanctioning the Banks off for us, the only people sick enough to want to spend all day covered in soot. Until that day in 2189, the exterior portions of the spot made famous by Quim’s iconic TWS New York montage wallie, and Dill’s Photosynthesis kickflip ramped up in coverage this year, while the rest of the spot sat in captivity.
18. The One-Spot Part Bug Reaches New York
Ever since Bobby Worrest’s “Home Town Turf Killer” part, there’s been an epidemic of one-spot parts across skateboarding. Only this year did it reach New York, when people (namely Taylor Nawrocki at the Williamsburg Monument, James Sayres at Borough Hall, and the Canal crew at the Grand Street Courts) decided they’re more comfortable with the Stockholm Syndrome of being victimized by one bad spot rather than dying a dozen little deaths in search of variety.
17. House of Vans Demolished
There was no place to skate and simultaneously purge our most Lord of the Flies-esque tendencies quite like an open invite night at House of Vans after the mid-February high temperature had not exceeded 30 degrees for two weeks. A 50-mile drive to Peekskill’s 2nd Nature Park is our new best option.
16. Harold Hunter’s Bagel Advice Mystery Gets Solved, and Subsequently Taken Too Far
The interconnectedness of skateboarding in 2018 means we get the find out the background stories behind the most useless bits of minutiae ever committed to film.
A year after finding out the truth behind Appleyard’s “Fuck yeah!” soundbyte from Sorry, we heard the tale behind Harold Hunter’s seminal bagel advice from Eastern Exposure 3 via Dan Wolfe’s Chromeball interview.
As always, someone had to take a bit of gentle advice the wrong way…
Bonus Mini 5 — Best of Instagram — 2018
5. Bond Street Gap NBD (May 10)
4. E.T. Quits Yeezy (September 6)
3. Phil Rodriguez’s Insta Part (June 19)
2. Who Kid’s Insta Part (March 13)
1. T.J. v.s. the Tractor (April 19)
Always look forward to these. Kalis story was awesome.
hahahahahahaha
but yeah jaako or whoever did that had no reason doing it
Does this explain why scooter people are so hated in skateboarding?
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/
“…outgroups [scooter kids] are rarely literally “the group most different from you”, and in fact far more likely to be groups very similar to you sharing almost all your characteristics and living in the same area.”
probs better off suffocating on that sociology degree than sharing your thoughts on skateboarding ever again
@thinkpiece — degree is MD n it’s a shame this kind of writing is outside your semi-literate range ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@psh no maybe that’s how you work in the Red country but over in Europe we count a bachelors degree in many fields as a degree, are you mad because you wrote it or went to school for sociology?
actually I don’t think we’re even talking about the same thing, unless you’re also referring to the link to “thinkpiece” in the post
@thinkpiece I think you are correct. And yes, sociology BA is a degree, just not mine.
thinkPeace?
Ceasefire accepted