The QS Year in Review Countdown: 10-6

Photo by Brian Kelley

Dude it’s almost 2016. Previously: 15-11, 20-16, 25-21. Don’t forget to vote in our reader’s choice awards. Only two days to go ;)

10. Gillette’s Lafayette & Howard Ollie

This spot has always been a mirage. It looks cool, and is a bit out of place from the rest of the shit you passed along the way, but there’s not much there. The way people skate it also only evolves every ~ten years: what has been a wallride for as long as people have been making the skate from Supreme to the Banks, became a chain-to-manny concoction with Dill’s Skate More part in 2004. And this past year, Austyn Gillette eyed the barely wider-than-a-board slab of concrete at the bottom of the wall, and made the massive [blindsided from traffic] ollie into Howard Street.

9. The Family Court Ollie

@talconorsobia 😱FACE MELTING OLLIE😱 @transworldskate

A video posted by Richard Quintero (@richard_quintero) on Jun 19, 2015 at 8:56am PDT

Just a few blocks south on Lafayette Street might be the most utterly fucked trick of 2015. It’s something people would joke about happening one day — but then again, it’s on one of the most frequently traversed routes downtown — Brandon Westgate has no doubt passed it dozens of times, and even he didn’t do it. If that’s not enough to rule it as impossible, what is? Someone jumped the gap, and that made it into a video.

People complained about the angle of the camera not doing it justice, but let’s be real…there’s no way of doing it justice without standing at the top of the four stair and looking at it in person.

8. The Rise of #SkateVideoHouse [Guest Entry]

Has it really been four years since “Gangbanging At Ground Zero” introduced us to “skate video house?”

What is SVH? SVH is slightly slower than normal instrumental house and techno music. It’s basically house music that’s not quite good enough for actual house-heads (yes, that’s a real term) to listen or dance to, but theoretically works in skate clips. I guess Theo Parrish is “good,” and I do like Moody Man, but for god’s sake, can we get a few songs with some thump and maybe even some singing? If we’re going to push the most influential musical movement since rap on the Cons consumer base, the least we can do is give shine to Trax or something.

The best piece of SVH #musicsupervision in 2015 was the first montage in Squad Massage. They used a real house song that people know and like. More of that, less of this moody slow indie tech dribble. It works well in those Palace clips, but not so much for the rest of y’all. — Roctakon

7. Bastord Place

They say that history repeats itself, and we, as residents of the non-spot capital of the world, are no exception to the rule. The original Astor Place, a zen-like place of worship where a metal curb was the deity, saw its demise when a luxury condo structure was built in place of an empty parking lot across the street.

There’s also that thing about how those who don’t learn from history are forced to repeat it. Bastord Place, no doubt the most heavily-sessioned curb since the Astor Place hey-day and one of the most documented spots of 2015, sits in front of Seward Park, what is soon to become a $1.1 billion luxury condominiumm redevelopment site. Why must all our favorite curbs be doomed?

6. N.Y. Ramp Co.

Photo by Colin Sussingham

The #tfreport hashtag is less active than ever, the cops are installing watchtowers, and attempts at a permanent box are rare. It is only a matter of time before it’s 2020 and the front gate of Tompkins has a “District Attorney’s Office Baseball & Roller Hockey League ONLY“-sign. In the meantime, the funnest days at Tompkins throughout the past year have been thanks to the efforts of New York Ramp Co., a pop-up project that’s as good of a time machine back to 2003 as you’re gonna get.

Bonus Mini 5 — 2014 Predictions Revisited

5. We finally see the footage of the backside lipslide to tailslide at Three Up Three Down! [Never saw it, or figured out who waxed it, but nobody’s waxed it since the most controversial post in site history went live.]
4. More Podcasts. [Yeah kinda. Shetler interviewed the Muska and that Carroll one was awesome.]
3. No one mentions the Plan B video again. Shecks gets down with QS. [C’mon now.]
2. Antonio turns AM for a major company, then turns pro, like, a year later. [What is a major company anymore, like actually?]
1. Old guys re: shaped boards, no complys and wacky haircuts.. [Yup, just add Young Thug to the list.]