The bountiful approaches to riding a skateboard in New York — from digging for an untapped morsel of crust and rub-bricking it, to never leaving Blue Park — will ebb and flow in popularity as time wears on. A few laid off security guards or a mere propped tile are capable of creating a sea change in the culture.
But through all those changes, there has been one constant, and that’s midtown footage. Dig as far back as the 1980s, and you’ll see people skating down that very same 47th Street hill beside the FedEx building that the dudes in Tanner Diamond‘s great new “OTIS” montage are.
Most of the plazas have been renovated twice-over, but “OTIS” remains spiritually connected to the generations of teenaged night footy edits before it, which tore through midtown or Financial in the exact same way: not trying to accomplish much more than squeezing as much time as possible at a seemingly endless string of high-bust, grey marble. It’s what things like QS started out as, before people had to get jobs ‘n responsibilities and shit ♥
The only difference, of course, is that their youth has coincided with a COVID armageddon for commercial real estate, which sits above these plazas. These spaces are as empty as they ever were, and maybe ever will be.
Any able-knee’d person not taking advantage of that is given reminder to do so with this edit, while they still can ;) One day — sooner than you think — you’re going to be skating through pedestrians thinking, “Where the fuck did all these people come from?”
Features Milo Richardson, Coles Bailey, Julian Eversley, Cristian Caraballo, Kyota Umeki , Legend Xavier , Akobi Williams.
These kids are passing the shred torch I love it — “Incentive zoning” is lowkey full of bangers tho wtf
tht fedex low to high ledge still being active and alive despite being older than most the people reading this site is truly nuts. good condition too.
Whoever shot and edited this is MAD TALENTED.