Lots of diving into the abyss — which seems applicable for our days and times.
Hardflips the ~wrong~ way, pedestrians who respect a smooth 5050, and no-pop nollie flips round out the rest of it.
Have a good weekend. It starts getting dark pre-5 P.M. come next Sunday, so enjoy this last one before we all start to hunker down.
One of the most prolific skate media franchises of the past ~decade has been Gronze. They carry a remarkable ability to dig into the outskirt neighborhoods of Barcelona, and tackle the sort of spots that your average skate tourist would not even glance at. (Really wish the “11th of the Month” series would make a comeback.) I imagine it’s kinda like what trawling for crust in Ridgewood or Maspeth is for us in New York — except for them, it’s in a city known for its flawless, low-bust spots and skate bucket-list pedigree.
Today, we’re proud to present a part from one of the franchise’s frigureheads, Fred Plocque Santos. “Eurday” was made with his friend Noyan, and premiered at the Vladimir Film Festival earlier this year. The results are a dive into those aforementioned outskirts, with boardslides down near-vertical knobbed rails, hubbas in the shape of quarterpipes, a highway-adjacent Max Palmer spot cousin, and a whole new take on the concept of subway skating.
Way back when, we were reporting on a new skatepark across the Atlantic opening and someone left a now-immortal comment.
“I’ve always wondered what skatepark builders have against STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGES. I live in CO and there’s a skatepark in every town with A 20 foot cradle but not a STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGE at any of em. What are the kids gonna do with a 20 FOOT CRADLE?!?! Just build us a STRAIGHT FUCKING LEDGE and be done with it!”
In the twelve years since, anytime we have reported on a built-for-skateboarding structure, we simply had to commentate on whether or not the park, plaza, et al. included a …Straight Fucking Ledge™.
Today, more New York City skateparks have Straight Fucking Ledges™, though probably not in the abundance that a Straight Fucking Ledge™-enthusiast would want.
📝 Intro + Interview by Greg Navarro
📷 Photography by Greg Navarro
It was a windy day in Maspeth, Queens when I found Alim, 17 years old, fingerboarding at New York’s only D.I.Y. fingerboard park. “Yo, imagine I film a whole fingerboard street part, but it’s on VX1000? Ima’ change the game with that one,” he said to me. I laughed, thinking about all the tape he’d have to waste. “What you laughing at, poser?” he said to me with a grin on his face. Alim is the type of kid who says what he wants.
As we got to know each other, Alim invited me out on a few filming missions with his best friend Elisa Martini, 20 years old, a skater from Jamaica, Queens. Elisa and Alim are the youngest new members of the Bronze 56K crew. For a whole year, as Alim recovered from his ACL surgery, Elisa and him invested in a VX1000 and set out to film a video. On the morning of their video premiere, I sat down with the two friends at the Brooklyn Banks to learn more about the making of “On The Corner.”
“Eden told me the benches cost the city about $1,000 apiece. It takes a skateboarder to know that you don’t need a big, expensive park to make skaters happy.” Willy Staley (our friend who wrote Tyshawn’s NYT profile and the incredible post-lockdown deep dive on The Sopranos enduring through the generations) penned a full feature for The New York Times Magazine about how the Love Park granite wound up in Malmo, Sweden. The king is just a dude.
Somehow missed this a lil’ while back, but it seems like others did too: “timeout” is a three-minute New York montage by Jake Durham with appearances from Nelly Morville, Mathias Rostein, Matt Militano + others.
