The 2013 New York Skateboarding Year in Review: 20-16

5 P.M. updates are stupid, but whatever. Got a bit caught up today. Thanks to anyone who caught the preview of the new QS “Best of” clip at the Nike screening yesterday. That clip will be online at the end of the week. Back to our annual wrap-up series…

#s 25 through 21 are here.

20. Houston Street Construction Becomes the New Bank to Green Box

The first installment of this series concluded with a list of 2013’s best spots. Astute readers of QS should know that it reflected office favorites, and not all-encompassing New York skater favorites. We don’t ollie down what we cannot ollie up; professionals and “good” skateboarders abide by a far different creed. Last year, visitors were enamored with the green metal ledge in Harlem, until it mysteriously vanished in January. (Everyone was sick of seeing tricks on that thing anyway.)

Scrambling to find a fresh New York spot that would prove to sponsors that “I didn’t just get drunk and make out with girls with shitty tattoos the entire time I was there,” good skateboarders did what they do best: like, saw the world differently, dude. And so, you couldn’t sit for a minute on the Houston steps this past summer without seeing a pack of skateboarders cruise past, with their filmer towing a hundred-pound backpack ten feet behind them. With yesterday’s release of the new Zoo York vid, companies began an outpour of footage on obstacles that are otherwise the bane of every lower Manhattan driver’s existence.

19. Drop In Skatepark Closes

“I’ve never been upstate before, unless Drop-In counts.”

Gone the way of Rexplex and X-Ramps, Drop-In closed its doors for good earlier this year. The park was the longest tenured “It’s fifteen-degrees outside and I want to skate, so who wants to chip in on a rental car”-destination, and contained perhaps one of the top five most disgusting bathrooms on the eastern seaboard. 2nd Nature and The Bridge still exist for our winter refuge needs — but those places don’t hold the the honor of turning Jersey Dave pro or hosting the Pryce Holmes 21st birthday theme party.

18. The Slam of 2013

If Dane Burman died on his Municipal Services Building 5050, he might own this title. To everyone’s surprise, he didn’t, so the distinction belongs to Matt Mooney experiencing the wrath of a velvet rope.

Considering this spot was only around for a week, it is almost as if it was built solely for the .GIF above to exist.

17. Manhattan & Scholes

Aside from who did the best fakie flip of all time and Rihanna, skateable space (that isn’t necessarily a skatepark) is the most oft-discussed topic on this website. At the rate the city is going, these sort of mini parks are popping up once every two years (Thomas Greene in 2011, Manhattan and Scholes in 2013.) They build entire skateparks at a faster rate than these sort of spaces. You know how it’s obvious they’re going too slow? If you came here on a weekend this past fall, it’d be as packed as the L.E.S. Park — and it’s not even that fun after fifteen minutes…

More of these, please. Preferably with “STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGES.”

16. Brain Rot Increases Among 12th & A Teenagers

12th Street locals have rotted their brains to the point where they are attempting to skate a flatbar that looks like this:

Bonus Mini 5 — Best #musicsupervision of 2013

Rihanna “Only Girl” — Massimo Cavedoni Ri-Mix
Stardust “Music Sounds Better With You” — Sk8mafia Stee Outro
INXS “Never Tear Us Apart” — Lurker Lou in Faux One One
Lil’ Wayne “Tha Mobb” — Theotis Beasley in Nike SB Chronicles 2 (Anyone hating on this song because it’s a Lil’ Wayne song doesn’t actually like rap music. Second miracle example of a skate company using a great Wayne song in a vid, after Jeff Lenoce in Baker Has a Deathwish obvs.)
The Midnight Express Theme / Ice-T “Body Count” — The Deathwish Video Intro