Human beings are infatuated with ways to measure their endurance: Usain Bolt’s 100-meter dash, Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game, 76 hot dogs in ten minutes, etc.
In ledge skating, this measuring stick is holding a given trick over a long ledge. If it stands to reason that everyone’s first time doing anything on a ledge is a quick grind off the end, then holding it the distance is the true form of mastery.
For this purpose — in New York, at least — The Grate™ is a unit of measure.
Have you been getting really good at backside tailslides? There is no doubt that one of your idiot friends will ask, “D’ya think you could do it over the grate?”
Knobs get conquered in a number of ways. Beyond the obvious — actually being de-knobbed — two things happen to render them obsolete.
One, is that skateboarding evolves. The cliché goes something like: “without struggle, there is no progress.” When spots are knobbed, our most able-bodied athletes see an invitation to have quicker feet and longer ollies. This can be seen via people skating past the knobs at Pyramid Ledges, and between the knobs at Verizon Banks — though it will take a generation of people thinking Tiago is “normal” before the re-knobbed Veterans manny pad gets unlocked again. (Its first post-knob unlocking occured under the supervision of Anthony Pappalardo in the 1870s, A.K.A. in Fully Flared.)
Option two is playing the long game. You wait for weather, rust and general wear-n’-tear to do their things.
Imagery from New York skateboarding’s most romanticized decade is finite. The city spent half of the nineties without an industry, so all the existing artifacts have been reblogged, reposted and #TBT-ed a million times — Zoo, Kids, Ari Marcopoulos’ Metropolitan ads, a couple early 411 or Transworld montages, and then it runs scarce.
What does remain is people’s private collections (e.g. you may remember the homemade SkateNYC videos that made their way online back in 2011.) High and Mel Stones are two girls who grew up alongside many of the names you’d immediately associate with that era of skateboarding in New York, touting a camera from their respective school photography programs along with them. After posting outtakes on their Instagram over the past year, they are releasing a book of personal photographs from those years to celebrate the lifelong friendships they created in that time. We asked Mel to caption some of those images. The book can be purchased on ThatsACrazyOne.com, and all proceeds will be donated to the photo department at Lincoln High School in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
Village Psychic put together a sick new remix video of Mark Humienik, avid practitioner of the backside shove-it out, and one of the few remaining devotees to the early-2000s Staten Island ledge relic known as the ABC Ledges #wenning #durante #charlesives
“36 Stair Ollie” is the new ~moody~ clip from the Marbio Worldwide crew out in L.I.
The Bunt is really coming through with the heavy-hitters this year. Episode two of the new season is with new Anti-Hero rider, Brian Anderson, who has apparently been skating Anti-Hero boards with stickers over the graphic since the Yeah Right! days.
Steve Mastorelli’s new video, The Meadowlands, is premiering at the SVA theater on 23rd Street between 8th and 9th at 9 P.M. on Saturday. You can find the flyer here.
One thing that moves lightyears quicker than the Thrasher homepage is the Live Mixtapes homepage. For that reason, RapZips.tumblr.com has been a massive help in catching up on music that might’ve slipped through the cracks last year.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: This Kris Dunn sequence is fucked, but also the Blazers are 30th in the league in defense (don’t worry, the Knicks are 23rd.)
Quote of the Week Yaje: “In Europe, you can get beer anywhere, even at the vending machine.” Jason Byoun: “Word. That’s like the Staten Island Ferry.”
