In uncertain times, humans seek comfort. Today, this comfort is found in a house-y Johnny Wilson edit — a tried and true combination if there ever was one — anchored by Wilsonian staples like Antonio, Cyrus, Bobby, and Karim. Alongside them are Poe Pinson, Joseph Campos, Jack O’Grady, Elijah Odom, Casper Brooker, Troy Gipson and Ville Wester, aiming to find the lightning that Nelly found with his crew of St. Lunatics in 2002.
Let’s get our most sacred annual tradition underway: running down the minutiae, tricks, laughs, spots, and bathroom renovations that defined the year in New York skateboarding.
“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.
🎨 Graphic by Francesco Pini
📊 Ballot Count by 4PLY
The results are in and we have an official, publicly sourced snapshot of 2024 skateboarding, as voted on by hundreds of people. And unlike last year, when the eventual Thrasher S.O.T.Y. winner dropped a part on the day that voting closed, there were no last-minute surprises. There are some new names, and some longtime favorites who have only ranked 20-11 in the past have finally broke into the top ten ❤️
Thanks to everyone who voted, and everyone who did some writing below :)
This ranking was voted on by QS readers from December 9th to December 13th. Editors and contributors can vote, but this is not a selection curated by QS staff. If you’re interested in the methodology, 4PLY broke down how we tally the votes ✨
Jiro Platt, Noah Pollard and Kaue Cossa go off in Naquan Rollings’ latest edit, “$$$ JAM UP EDITION.” Pretty much all New York clips.
“America’s biggest pastime is baseball, and we have a baseball field that changed over to a historic skateboarding spot. That says a lot for the future.” Jenkem wrote The Oral History of Tompkins Square Park.
“When the news first broke about the Malmö project using materials from LOVE, the reporting made it seem as though all the materials that were salvaged were going overseas, so there was some damage control needed there. The reality was that it was only a relatively small amount of granite that made it to Sweden – some tiles and some blocks. All the most significant features were never going to leave Philadelphia.” Free got the full tale of the Love Park marble being taken to Malmö and incorporated into a public plaza.
