March Madness

cyrus UN

Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski.

Cyrus is on Polar, Ben K is on 3D, and Steve Nash retired.

Found this podcast piece about “defensive architecture” with Ocean Howell really interesting (he’s an architecture professor now.) His points about developers positioning skateparks in rundown areas so they give way to gentrification seem to make sense. (Check where on the map the new Jersey City skatepark will be.)

An interview with Chad Bowers, former Alien Workshop team manager and principal figurehead behind Mother Collective about working for and starting a skateboarding company in…Ohio. “They forgot about the fourth coast.”

Nieratko interviewed Bill Strobeck on the occasion of cherry’s one-year anniversary.

#MPC: 1) HD video blog #9 from Johnny Wilson. 2) Max Palmer, Andrew Wilson, John Choi from Dime, et al. with one of the better clips from the now defunct Coda warehouse. 3) Some Paych second angles via Paul Young.

New Hi-8 clip (oxymoron?) with all the Bronze dudes.

Slam has a quick photo feature with the bro Rob Mathieson from his time in New York.

Hey, these guys like Virtual Reality Bump as much as we do!

There are some hot moves in this Evan Dittig part for Underground Skate Shop.

SMLTalk looks back the the first-ever skate re-edit contest. What up Jeremy.

Dunno what the deal with this blurry and dark Leo Gutman re-edit is (art?), but it was a good reminder to revisit The Brodies part that earned him Q.S.S.O.T.Y honors in 2013.

Even though he is quite obviously the entire QS office’s favorite skateboarder, it should be noted that Lucas’ slappy back smith IG vid was not the first known documentation of said maneuver on social media. This guy did it for the Vine back in January.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Nice to see J.R. Smith excelling in a city with minimal nightlife. Imagine him on the Thunder? He might become MVP.

Quote of the Week: “Tribeca is like the Equinox of skateparks.” — Connor Champion

Snack Queen

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Bagel via Tompkins Square Bagels via Digital Ashtray

Who has a tractor trailer? Let’s bring all the Long Island City ramps to Tompkins.

“He took a look at my shoes, grilled me and asked, ‘What’s this shoveling for?’ I responded, ‘My grandma fell here last week and I don’t want anybody else to get hurt.’ He said ‘Nah, you’re a skateboarder, leave the park now or I’ll call the cops. We have a guy that shovels the park.'” Philly’s hatred of skateboarding never fails to reach new heights. An interview with Tracy Gorman about skating Love Park this past winter.

Speaking of which, Sabotage 4 should be a good time.

Dug this video’s #chill #vibes: Nassau by Derek Heydle. All New York stuff.

Gino talks about boards, shoes and gear for nine minutes.

In the Bity,” a three-and-a-half minute montage featuring most of the Bronze guys and some rad Shawn Powers Tompkins night lines.

2015 is all about ushering in a wave of redhead acceptance in skateboarding. Weiger’s all iPhone birthday part was great. If a genie granted me the chance to skate ledges like any pro but said I couldn’t pick a Spaniard, I’d probably pick Weiger.

Transworld’s “ABD Archive” GIF-itized most of the prominent tricks to go down over picnic tables. Chris Franzen’s switch front shove is still the coolest.

Dunno about calling the L.E.S. Park “iconic,” but this “Day in the Life”-esque thing with Billy Rohan was cool. “Chanel makes you smell like your Rolex is real.”

The Paych guys, Will R.S. and Zered at House of Vans.

If you want to watch more Aaron Herrington re-edits, here are the contest winners.

The book about the history of the ollie is 912 pages long.

Here’s what the first run of Mother Collective boards looks like.

Haven’t heard Waka rap in like ~two years at this point (the volatility of the rap spotlight is insane huh?), but something about his voice sounds weird now.

This is the best Kendrick Lamar song.

QS Sports Desk: Kyrie Irving is only the third most fun-to-watch guard in the NBA.

Quote of the Week: “Biebel became one of my favorite skaters this year because of Instagram.” — Jack Sabback

YRN: The Album drops June 16th. Kinda got the feeling that those guys made every sort of song there was for them to make after their last mixtape, but would love to be proved wrong :)

TRUST – The New Bronze Video

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Monday Links are getting bumped for a day.

The latest Bronze audio-visual presentation is now on YouTube. Turns out the Bronze office really does use a 56k modem. Need some proper time to properly digest the sensory overload. So many feelings, so much confusion, so much joy, a few tears and even a few laughs. Didn’t Andrew Allen do that first?

Features Josh Wilson skating incredibly fast, Jordan Trahan stringing together many distant skate obstacles in unorthodox fashion, Shawn Powers looking wonderfully kempt and curated in the moonlight, Billy McFeely maintaining an odd life-long allegiance to that horrible high ledge at 20th and C, Rob Gonyon running through the six, Joseph Delgado including mid-2000s pre-Bronze Flipmode staple Pedro Garboza in his part, Chachi logging the first known line in Nike Foamposites, a career-best outing from Kevin Tierney, and Dick Rizzo making you yell drawn-out obscenities at your screen a few times.

Just a lot of emotions, man. Go to the Bronze webstore and buy things to help them pay back their $30K debt to Pig Wheels for production costs.

Ya, def.

Previously: Enron, Solo Jazz, 56k, Caviar, Sognar

2014 New York Skateboarding Year in Review: 5-1

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Final post of the year. Previously: 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 2014 in T.F. Obstacles.

Happy New Year. Be safe tonight if you’re inclined to go outside.

5. The Burning Question of 2014: “Is Chinese Seaport #Legit?”

It is bad enough that our culture has been diminished to an abyss of spots-that-aren’t-really-spots and Houston Street construction scraps. New York-based skateboarders have now found themselves overthinking miracles like the resurrection of Seaport.

“Does it look too much like a skatepark?”
“Will my footage here still look #core between the traffic barriers and late-night wallrides in my ‘Summer Trip to New York’-part?”
“Am I lame for thinking a metal ledge needs wax?”
“Will my friends back home say I sold out for not skating Reggaeton Ledges instead?”
“If there was some #urban graffiti on the ledge, would it be more #legit?”

Do you think the dudes at Para-lel, who attained ungodly manual and ledge abilities over the years, ever stopped to question as to whether or not their spot was *too* good? Americans, man.

More »

4 P.M. Links :(

unis

UNIS.

Manolo’s “20 Years of Chocolate” remix will bring a tear to your eye.

Still one of the craziest things ever done on a skateboard. Dude was too futuristic.

“Tyshawn Jones is really getting some air! Now I hope that he and others of his ilk are billed for the damage they cause to the steps and walls of monuments and public areas around the city.” TJ got a photo in the Times this past weekend. Some commenters were upset. We should ban everything except walking. That’d be cool.

SMLTalk has been doing some hard-hitting investigative journalism as of late. First, they use Kevin Bradley’s bump-to-bar grab from “cherry” as a springboard to assess the history of acceptable grabs on street, and though it went online a few weeks ago, this piece on the demise of the pop shove-it is also worth your consideration.

Boil the Ocean on Stativ IV and the future of full-length videos.

Some Bronze B-sides. ICYMI: Jenkem interviewed Peter about dark corners of the internet last week. (Here’s another interview with him and Pat from last fall.)

Quick Acapulco Gold clip with a 2013 Q.S.O.T.Y. Leo Gutman sighting.

This “Steep Banks” account on YouTube started uploading a lot of Long Island-based gems from the nineties: Frank Gerwer in midtown circa 1997 and R.I.P. Burritoville and Broadway Bump, two of the greatest lil’ kid spots in New York skateboarding history.

Well, a summer montage to “We Dem Boyz” was pretty inevitable.

Columbus Circle is fun.

A look at the current breed of skate videos coming out of Philadelphia.

Wasn’t expecting to link a video of a guy on Jart today, but some of the stuff in this Fran Molina part is undeniably insane. He destroys MACBA without even hitting the ledges much, and skates sorta like a Euro Torey Pudwill. (Who, by the way, was recently discovered to be maybe the third Jewish pro skateboarder ever. Time to amend this post.)

Uhh…Young Thug was on The Tonight Show.

Quote of the Week: “Yo you know what’s fact? Most pretty girls have bigass foreheads.” — Overheard at Lenox Ledges

Sorry for the slow start to the week. Cool stuff soon?