The 2024 Quartersnacks Year in Review: 25-16

Almost got caught off guard with December starting so close to Thanksgiving until NY Mag ran their “Reasons To Love New York” shit (which is what this series is pretty much based on.) Had to scramble the notes throughout the year and get to writin’.

Wow. Here we go…

25. Yerrcribs

This is going to feel like some sponsored post thing, but it’s 100% not.

Nothing in 2024 skateboarding has been as funny as Leo Heinert’s @yerrcribs videos. (Ok, maybe the Zero video.) Whether it was doing a footplant on the tree at Cooper Park before showing you an apartment you could maybe afford, or giving you a #spotcheck of the four-block at Domino Park before giving the tour for an apartment you definitely can’t afford, we got enough comic relief from the intersection of real-estate and skateboarding this year to forget that we’re actually still waiting on that “Prodemic” sequel.

24. Low End Theory @ Grant’s Tomb

Ever since people began skating the double-kink bank on the west end of Grants Tomb, the four-stair ledge that sustained a million early-aughts TRV-900 edits has been collecting dust.

So there was something almost startling (in a good way!) in seeing Frankie Spears — someone capable of doing whatever he wants on the kinked side — bring some 2024 tech to a 2004 classic in the Dickies video.

23. Santa Is Real & His Name Is Jeff

For three Decembers in a row, Jeff Cecere’s videos have provided a much needed retreat against the onslaught that is the modern S.O.T.Y. push. Mind How You Go, This Is A Window, and next Saturday, Triple Or Nothing, feel like an end-of-the-work-week drink with your friends — all at the tail-end of a season when keeping up with skateboarding feels like a full-time job.

That is not to take away from the quality packed within the twenty-ish minutes of those projects, just that the timely tone-shift into a thoughtful homie video could not come at a better moment each year — for three years in a row.

22. 2024 Paris Men’s Fashion Week Becomes The *Collective* Exodus of the Year

That kid who would always skate down your block at 8 A.M. on the dot, with big headphones and fat Globes who you haven’t seen around in a while? He was at Paris Fashion Week.

That one dude who did darkslides at L.E.S. Park all the time? He was definitely there.

The Janitor? Most likely.

The last six people you went on a Hinge date with? Yep, they were all together at République, talking shit about you.

Your bodega guy? Yep.

The night bodega guy? Yeah man, don’t you remember they were closed for a week?

Tony Hawk? 100%. Yes, dude.

Danny Brady, who has the same birthday as Tony Hawk? Of course, bro — are you dumb?

Everyone was fucking there.

21. While We’re Here… #fashion #pants #trendwatch

There are varying schools of thought about how much skaters are actually predictive of larger cultural trends, but considering that at the same time that The New York Times decided to run Their Big Pants Piece™, Frog started pushing bootcut jeans, straight-fit denim debuted on skateboard-basketball courts in place of …basketball shorts, and the entire edit didn’t have a single pair of baggy pants…

…which edit, you may ask?

The world is an edit. Dress accordingly.

20. Palace Bar = The New Sunshine

Since Sunshine shut down in 2018, there has never been a true home for skate video premieres in New York, unless you had Village East money — and let’s face it, most skaters don’t have Village East money.

While it was taking its footing as the de facto home of skate videos’ first showings coming out of the pandemic, Palace Bar’s back room, for the first time in many years, gave everyone an easy answer to the question: “where should we premiere our video?” Thanks, J.D.

19. The Little Banks Planks

This year, we didn’t get the phase two small Banks re-construction that was laid out in the three-part restoration plan when the Banks Nine opened, but we did get these sheets of plywood, and until they rebuild the spot to pre-2004 condition, they’ll have to do.

…and if they don’t? Man, we can find a lot of goddamn planks.

18. The Year of ConEd

Nobody should ever get too comfortable with things swinging too hard in one direction. The zeitgeist never sits still.

Case in point: the undisputed Spot of 2023™ was three friction-less recycled plastic blocks on tennis court ground.

A year later?

The undisputed spot of the year is ConEd Banks: a pile of brick and sandpaper shit, just outside of Rikers Island.

If the sheer fact that the collective resistance to going there fell to record lows this year isn’t enough, see the ender of Andrew Wilson’s pro part, Mike Anderson’s Dickies part (in which he unlocks a new way of getting down it), Alan Bell’s Late Nite Stars ender, the Village Psychic article about it, or the fact that two guys who flew ten hours from South America spent more trips coming back there than any other New York spot.

17. John Shanahan Hacks The Grand Street Algorithm

The hubbas in front of Abrons Art Center on Grand Street are the ultimate fools gold spot. They’ve spent decades earning, “Whoa, what’s that?!”-reactions from skaters, only for the answer to be “…uhh.”

Shanahan found what was hidden in plain sight, so much that another prolific figure-outer of spots, Mark Suciu, couldn’t help but exclaim: “Wooow, you figured out how to skate that!”

16. Rest Assured, The B.Q.E. Spot Will Outlive Us All

The Pyramids, Stonehenge, Göbekli Tepe — it’s about fucking time that people start putting some respect on the B.Q.E. spot’s name and begin mentioning it in these ranks, because it is by far, the most apocalypse-proof structure that skaters have ever concocted.

They better hurry up with that UNESCO World Heritage Site sticker. Sorry, Burnside.

Bonus Mini Rapidfire 5

Curved Ledge of the Year:

Best Cyber Monday Deal in May: Revel Scooters on Craigslist

It’s Coming Home: The O.G. Tompkins Bench @ The Star Team Shop

Essential 2025 Skate Accessory: Gloves

Digitally Remastered, Still A Colossal Bust: The Penn Plaza Manny Pad