Sorry 4 da wait. Let’s keep her going. Final part will be up New Year’s Eve.
Previously: 25-16
Past Editions: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
15. The Year of the Switch Hardflip
Our projections about the cab flip becoming the dominant flip trick trend of 2018 fell short. And still, it seems like we, as a community, are ready to move on from a decade dominated by backside bigspins and impossibles at the opening bell of every game of S.K.A.T.E.
And then, an epiphany: We live in New York, the place where Jeff Pang went off the curb, into the street, back up the curb, and a few pushes down the sidewalk to do a switch hardflip. With leadership from the Bronze guys, switch hardflips soon became gold flatground currency this year.
14. A Flash in the Pan at Worth Street Plaza
Everything we are conditioned to expect from skate spots and their bust is stacked against this mirage of a plaza on Worth and Church. It is fenced up on weekends and weekdays after 5 P.M, the building itself is a windowless Orwellian tower of intimidation, there hadn’t been any footage of it in decades, and its prime skate hours come with a bunch of office workers eating lunch.
“Oh that place? It’s a two-second bust.”
Yeah, until someone tried and we all found out it was a go for most of the summer.
13. Eldridge & Division
Just as its late older brother was a log in the road of having a productive day after leaving the T.F, the Chinatown triangle spot began filling the same role as an evil force against those brave few who passed its siren call on their way out from L.E.S. park.
(It’s also maybe the location of the first ever backside 360 manual to not be on a slanted manny pad?)
12. Sunshine Cinemas Closes
Premieres then^
Premieres now^
Sunshine was like a no-strings-attached hook-up that you never appreciated until it was over. It wasn’t anyone’s ~favorite~ venue, but it made life easy. Ask anyone who has tried to have a skate video premiere in New York these past twelve months. If you’re Cons or Supreme, you can afford Village Cinemas East. If you’re anyone else, you’re stuck trying to shove 500 people into a 120 person capacity bar, or hand-picking the fifty most essential attendees for an intimate screening in some random part of town.
11. Premieres Turn Sexual
Who would have thought that Jerry Hsu’s passing observation would have such far-reaching effects on our 2018 lives. We’re not somewhere in the middle — if there’s one thing more abundant than pornography on the internet, it’s skate footage. With no Sunshine around to enjoy a premiere with our fellow humans, video creators (and bootleggers) insisted that we experience them in skateboarding’s new cinema of record: PornHub.
10. Dimes Square A.K.A. The Triangle A.K.A. ??? Still Doesn’t Have A Set Name
But it does have a t-shirt!
No recurring 2018 conversation proved to be as stupid as arguing with your one friend who hated the name “Dimes Square,” the other who insisted “The Triangle” could be too easily confused for another spot, and “the park next to Labor” wasn’t specific enough when referring to the vortex you’d wind up at when you told your girlfriend you were “skateboarding.” At press time, “dollar beer park” is still the name that incites the least ire, though it’s a bit clunky for our liking.
(And that shit is called Dimes Square, whether you like it or not.)
9. The Midtown Revival
Photo by Mike Heikkila
The past year included the CBS ledge-to-drop getting liberated for the first time since the nineties (above), Antonio skating the sidewalk and stairs on the opposite side of the same building like it was just some parking lot manny pad, the most fanfare for a Brick Nine trick probably ever, a constantly re-liberated FedEx ledge (it’s knobbed again), a surge in Seagram Building coverage, tons of Big Screen Plaza footage, John Shanahan not getting kicked out of Forbidden Banks long enough to do two insane tricks, Canal’s Mode having more midtown clips that pretty much any other local vid in recent memory, and oh, a Thrasher cover at the 33rd Street 6 station.
Midtown can be frustrating, but if the stars align, it is without question, still the funnest and best-looking place to skate in the city.
8. The Blue [Park] Wave
There are the people who “mostly” skate Tompkins, though their party’s numbers are dwindling. There’s the the people who “mostly” skate L.E.S. — they’d probably be the ones who hold the most control in government. And these past 12-18 months, the people who “mostly” skate Blue Park made their voices heard, emerging as a dominant force in city politics, much to the dismay of all their friends who don’t want to eat empanadas and kind of try manny tricks until someone says “should we hit Cooper before it gets dark?”
7. The Skater Dater Media Boom
Every few years, there will be a piece of writing about our, um, quirks when it comes to dating. And dont’t lie, it’s nice to hear about yourself from even a hypothetical love interest, even if you’re just being roasted the entire time. Both Tiny Hat Skate Life and Jenkem’s “I wanna look away but can’t” dating series gave this entire sub-genre of skate content new life this year, shining a light on our somehow charming ineptitude when it comes to doing anything remotely romantic.
6. Caddo & Lou Quit Skateparks
The most tired joke we run on QS is the one about how there are no spots in New York. It’s a thinly vailed concession of defeat towards putting forth ANY morsel of effort. No two skaters have made us look stupider for it (and received more “yo, where’s that spot on your Insta” texts from people they probably never otherwise hear from) this past year than Lurker Lou and Dave Caddo, who made the bold decision to stay clean off of skateparks, and comb the most under-explored corners of the city for new spots.
Bonus Mini 5 — 2017 Predictions Revisited: red for wrong, green we were right
5. The vintage skate garms market becomes oversaturated, which leads to a collective identity crisis in how to best represent ourselves as individuals via legwear decisions [Considering half the people you follow have second accounts to sell clothes on IG, nah, the whole vintage gear thing hasn’t reached critical mass.]
4. We give up on hoping for Johnny video blogs, but at least Gang Corp has been uploading like one vid a month [Johnny was busy filming “BLESSED”, and Gang Corp’s Black Business video is on the way…]
3. We get O.G. Respect™ at least once, but only if there’s a 2018 Christmas clip ;) [Looooooooooool. Blew it on this one. At least there was an “End of Summer” montage.]
2. Three staph infections and a case of leprosy from the big banks [The city sealed up the Big Banks at the start of the year, so no one had the chance to be hospitalized from the sanity conditions down there.]
1. A rail kid doesn’t get S.O.T.Y. [♥ #TJSOTY]
JB backside 360 Manual a flat pad in French Fries
It’s called dollar beer
It’s not even a square, so fine, you win ;)
If the person who lives across the street from it calls it Dimes Square, it’s Dimes Square.
If the person who lives across the street and not from New York its ‘dollar beer’.
10 Dimes Beer Triangle
Adam McNatt back three’d to Manny a flat pad in Powell’s Celebraty Tropical Fish in 1991.
Rob Campbell did fs 360 5-0 in a line at ABC ledges
anna khachiyan calls it dimes square and shes an ‘intellectual’
Ayo S/O John Shanahan HE EATS
this being an actual debate makes me think it should have at least cracked the top five
Shout out to avoiding skateparks like the plague (and staph).
Calling it “dollar beer” is a form of dry snitching.
The end.
The Feds. you’s an opp.