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

BEST SPOT OF 2013

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.

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Breaking Boards

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Still the best piece of photography in 2013.

This has to be one of the slowest news weeks in the past few years of doing Monday Links. Can’t wait for basketball season to start.

We can keep making up hypothetical narratives about why our favorite skaters haven’t had any footage in ages, but at least Fred Gall has been #relevant for twenty years and counting. He has a new part on The Skateboard Mag site with kickflip backside noseblunts in it ‘n stuff. (Here’s an alternate YouTube link.)

Ripped Laces investigates the Osiris D3’s second or third life. This time, it’s mostly confined to the shelves of Italian sports retailers.

The first post-Beef Patty video blog entry from Johnny Wilson and co.

Some guy did a frontside lipslide up Black Hubba.

A few cool homie videos popped up recently:Ripstick,” which is filmed around New York state, “Slime 2” (Leo Gutman sighting!), and “Porch Mafia,” a New York and Long Island-based project with a reutilization of Rick Howard’s song from Goldfish.

Skateboarding is weird in 2013, man.

On that very same topic, Chris Nieratko found the quintessential Dylan Reider lookalike at a skatepark in Belguim, interviewed him, and then got in touch with Reider himself to give his (brief) take on the legions of doppelgangers out there.

The part about there being enough time for it to go from day to night when you drive from Peekskill to Manhattan seems a bit exaggerated (this isn’t L.A…), but there’s some cool stuff in this Dustin Younie part from Belief’s Ever Upward video.

Every international #indie skate company with a following in the States seems set on having at least one New York guy on their roster. After an odd stint on Jart, Billy McFeely is riding for Pass Port.

Next time you’re complaining about how there is nowhere fun to skate, remember that people in Myanmar would think you’re an asshole.

The 12th & A renaissance seems well under way. People are filming there again, and the Labor bench that slowly disintegrated at T.F. last year has been resurrected.

Quote of the Week: “I have a theory that Time Warner deliberately hires idiots to work their phones so you can’t negotiate with them.” — Bar Homie

The weather is going to be incredible this entire week.

Running Around the Lobby

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Monday Links on a Tuesday for the second week in a row.

Check out Philly Santosuosso’s mini New York part for Politic Skateboards. Eighty percent of it was filmed within maybe a ten-block radius. For those who don’t know, Philly runs Humidity Skateshop in New Orleans. DGK did a sick video about the shop and crew a few weeks ago.

The twenty definitive skateboard apparel trends of the nineties, in #listicle form.

For whatever reason, Shorty’s decided to start making skateboards again (don’t Skate Mafia and Shake Junt seem to split the space that Shorty’s would occupy, had it survived the post-Muska era?), but at least their iconic Horty shirt never lost relevance, as evidenced by this Westchester, NY-based montage. A notable QS associate also kinda met his wife because of that shirt. An undisputed classic.

If you live in/near the East Village, you knew 12th & A has semi been back for over a week. Due to Instagram, it’s now common knowledge for all. So, here’s the first known clip from 12th & A version 6.0. Is filming a lo-fi viewfinder the new VX1000?

…or wait, now that Instagram promos are a “thing,” has the iPhone solidified its position as the new VX1000?

And if there’s a new VX1000, what’s the new TRV900? A Galaxy S4? Until we figure that out, Billy Rohan has been hitting the streets with a TRV, and coming out with “Illumingnarly” edits of standard New York weirdos and some skateboarding.

R.B. Umali breaks down a nineties-heavy top five tricks he’s ever filmed. All due respect to Kalis’ Newport fakie flip, but the kickflip from Peep This that R.B. filmed might edge it out, considering it’s maybe the best kickflip ever done. Also, Billy McFeely 5050ed the ledge Lennie Kirk boardslid.

Craiglist Missed Connection alert! Anyone who reads this site lock eyes with some girl on the L train at 1 A.M. the other night? If you get a date out of it, be sure to thank the G Man at our Missed Connections desk ;)

BAM (the former best spot in Brooklyn), is hosting a skateboard-themed film series from September 6th through the 23rd. They’ll be showing everything from Gleaming the Cube, to This Ain’t California, to Waiting for Lightning, to Kids, and even Yeah Right! on a big screen. Taji Ameen interviewed George Gage, director of Skateboard starring Tony Alva, one of the first mainstream movies about skateboarding and the first in BAM’s series. (Related: The fifteen-minute short from 1966, The Devil’s Toy, is available online for free, and is one of the first films to depict skateboarding altogether. BAM will be screening it along with some related shorts later in the month. It was also the source material for the random shots of kids skating in the original Lurkers 2 promo.)

QS Sports Desk *Throwback* Play of the Week / Article Recommendation: As Knicks fans, it’s easier to remember Tracy McGrady as a past-his-prime cap-clearing piece than the guy responsible for things like this, but Bill Simmons makes a compelling case for his spot in the hall of fame over on Grantland.

Quote of the Week: “Nike Dunk wedges are the new tongue ring.” — Roctakon. (Should we expect a Three 6 Mafia reunion solely to sing the praises of young women in Nike Dunk wedges?)

Not the first time that we’re bummed over local TV programing changes: Despite the fact that Coming to America came out twenty-five years ago, and his only semi-recent output is admittedly an amazing Chapelle’s Show cameo, Pix 11 decided to give Arsenio Hall his own show at 11 P.M., moving Seinfeld reruns to 6:30 P.M. and midnight starting next week. Less of a reason to come home early.

Lost Chips on Lakers, Gassed Off Dwight

freezer modelos

Monday links for another hot — but not as hot — week.

Billy Rohan tests out the usability of Citibikes on New York’s most popular skate spots. Too bad no one rolled into the actual Courthouse Drop on one…

The only review of the new Jay-Z album you need to hear.

With some 58,000+ signatures and proper organization, skateboarders have, at the very least, delayed the reconstruction of the legendary South Bank spot in London. The group behind the the preservation has applied to grant the space “village green” status, which protects historic places for sports and pasttimes. Meanwhile, the Small Banks are a rotting carcass of bricks, dust and heroin needles.

Luis Tolentino confirms that his pop comes from eating bricks, and skates around New York’s biggest borough with Rodney Torres and the legendary Rob Campbell.

With Outdated behind us, Elijah Cole insisting that the Cathode video is coming out “next month” is the new Kevin Tierney insisting that J.P’s video is coming out “next month.” Anyway, new here’s a new promo for Cathode.

UXA has an upcoming video with Eli Reed, which co-stars Fat Johnny, the author of arguably the greatest “Quote of the Week” in QS history. Check the teaser here.

Gavin Nolan with a minute-long line in the new Jenkins Log clip.

Chrome Ball has been going out with a bang by posting a new interview each day. Marc Johnson’s is likely the best of the bunch, and confirms some of the speculation that went around why certain people weren’t as prevalent in Pretty Sweet as we had hoped. Good to hear his “lost” Tilt Mode goof-around part from the Bag of Suck-era has been found, considering the somewhat goofy Man Down part is his best.

A Mike Heikkila cruiser part filmed weeks after breaking both arms.

Stephen McClintock put together an artsy Super 8 video for DQM featuring a bunch of familiar faces. NY-based skate shops love Super 8.

I woke up in a new Bugatti.

Galen Dekemper offers some thoughts on the life and demise of 12th & A.

Reda and Zered hit up the Feast of St. Anthony.

Quote of the Week: “I feel like people who drive Smart Cars do, like, smart-ass shit.” — E.J. upon seeing a Smart Car weave between two construction cones

Last but not least: Nobody makes a tampon commercial quite like the Russians.

R.I.P. 12th & A (For real this time)

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Funny, we were talking about Billy Rohan’s NY1 “New Yorker of the Week” segment and how it saved 12th & A in 2009 just last night…

12th & A has died, and come back, and died again, and come back again, and been shut down because the wall of the building was literally falling apart — but as of this morning, 12th & A is officially gone. Construction crews with sledgehammers were tearing the DQM demo box and the remaining two ledge slabs that were installed in 2008 to pieces. They’ll probably leave the picnic table and stupid plastic bench (nevermind, it’s at T.F. already), but the spot is done for.

It’s incredible that the school / Billy came up with this “wacky” idea involving four marble slabs and some wood (A.K.A. 1/1,000,000th the cost of a skatepark?), and it kept hundreds of kids confined to one playground for entire days. Schools are about “the kids,” right? Or are they about appealing to a few token angry neighbors who move across the street from a school in a major city, and then complain about the noise from fifteen-year-olds that always ceases after dark? Because it’s easy to imagine those people finally “winning” in all of this. Big thanks to Billy and all the people who fought to keep this place open longer than anyone previously expected.

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