Let’s get our most sacred annual tradition underway: running down the minutiae, tricks, laughs, spots, and bathroom renovations that defined the year in New York skateboarding.
25) West Park in North Brooklyn
In a post-A.V.E. Bench society (see the #1 from 2022) and a world where Love Park’s marble lives in the third most populated city in Sweden, anachronistic plays on skate spots don’t hit like they used to.
But you really have to respect a notoriously hard-to-skate skatepark in Ventura, California going from “eh, we’ll make the exception for it in a street part“-oddity, to the subject of a widely circulated petition opposing its demolition, to a QS “Favorite Spot” piece, to the marquee pop-up obstacle celebrating a Brooklyn skate shop relocating from Bushwick to Greenpoint.
24) Knicks @ Tenant
…and on that note, the said relocation became the small hub for the skate community as they witnessed the best Knicks team in thirty years. The overlap between Knicks fans and skateboarders in this town was always niche at best, and now, it’s a reason for a skateshop to stay open past 10 P.M. on game nights.
Shout out to the poor bastard who pulled his Ronny Turiaf jersey out of the depths of the earth for the game 6 loss in the conference finals.
23) Extreme Sports Movies @ Zuccotti
Tap to play • via EC Melodi’s Wasting Time video
Zuccotti’s famed out ledge has been the setting of a “My War,” a perpendicular switch crook, and an ender to a part celebrating an A-list pro’s first pro model shoe.
Not a whole lot of surprises left to upturn, unless you remember why they’re called EXTREME FUCKIN’ SPORTS BABYYYYYYY.
22) The Most Insane Temperature Drop Ever
Where were you?
We were in midtown. It was euphoric. The first 80-plus degree March day after a grueling winter. That you-just-have-to-experience-it, everyone-feels-like-they’re-on-drugs New York day where life is perfect.
Then, a singular wind gust. It felt someone turned the A/C on to as cold as it can get. The largest temperature drop within a single hour in recorded New York City history.
“Bro, you’re talking about a wind gust from March in December?”
Yes, dude. How your friends reacted to that was a litmus test of who you’d want to be stuck in a WWI trench with.
21) The Tompkins Bathroom Renovation
Would you rather be in a WWI trench for a year, or have to pee in the O.G. Tompkins bathroom once?
The fact they opted to build and finish a whole new Kosciuszko Bridge before fixing this one bathroom should tell you everything you need to know about the insurmountable climb it took to repair it from being an ecological disaster zone.
Whether or not anyone will actually use it …is another issue.
20) Manny’s Ender
Manny Santiago via “This Is 40” part
Felt worthwhile to bring up once more that this dude ended his 40th birthday part with a varial heel backside 5-0 down the banks rail.
That 50th part is gonna go crazy.
19) The Liberation of the Jefferson L Bank
Tap to play • via John Clodfelter’s PAPER ..VIEW
The MTA saw the writing on the wall when Shawn Powers front shoved into this thing in 2008’s proto-Bronze Trife video: you think there’s a lot of skaters in Bushwick now? Give it a decade.
They fenced that shit up real quick.
That is until the foreshadowing opener of John Clodfelter’s PAPER… VIEW video where they unlock it for the first time in nearly twenty years, with a treat waiting for you at the end of the video. (On the sketchier, curb-blocked end, at that.)
18) Chinatown Banks Repair Goes Into Overdrive
It was announced that Kimlau Square, B.K.A. Chinatown Banks, will soon undergo a complete renovation. It is a spot we have been accused of “desecrating.”
Desecrating? More like saving. There has been no shittier spot that the city’s skaters have put in more effort into smoothing over, repairing and massaging (like, we waxed the fuckin’ cobblestones…) than this plaza that literally nobody would describe as pretty.
All that to say: those desecraters really kicked into absolute overdrive when the news hit this year.
(Fully aware they’re gonna “renovate” it into something worse.)
17) Noseslide of the Year
Casper Brooker via Johnny Wilson’s Spitfire Video
Let this be a reminder to any “#9 should’ve been #1!”-commenters on Top Tens… the most shoo-in of a Top 10 trick this year — a damn noseslide on the second level of the ledge we all probably skate the most, by QS-favorite Casper Brooker — didn’t even make the countdown that week. (Ed. note: Another Casper clip did though.)
16) Boardslides @ Columbus
But this year wasn’t about the precision that comes with a noseslide.
It really doesn’t matter where your fall along the ideological lines that surround boardslides on ledges: 2025 was about plunging into the abyss, something more synonymous with the boardslide.
Sully Cormier via Baker’s WATERCRACKER video
Quinn Batley via EC Melodi’s Wasting Time video
Look no further than these two at the same spot, both of which did make the countdown in their respective weeks, and both from Homies Network day ones.
Bonus Rapidfire Mini Five
Now That’s What I Call Lore: Natasha Lyonne picking up a skater at Tompkins only for him to be put off by her throwing on a two-hour movie of a guy ranting about how life sucks after they hook up.
Yes, It Has Been Enough Time That _____ Is A Throwback Now: Juicy J #musicsupervision.
Essential 2026 Fashion Accessory: Putting chapter selections in your skate video if you’re not putting titles.
H.C.O.T.Y: Haircut of the Year: Mike Heikilla on Blubba via “$100 Chill”
S*.O.T.Y: Screenshot of the Year:
the most wonderful time of the year is when you do these
natasha lyonne and casper brooker would make a cute couple
Boardslides as a means of coping with inflation and global uncertainty…prob the most brilliant thing I’ve read on this site. Nice work