It’s one of those “more words than videos” weeks :)
“But skateboarding’s worldview can often become so totalizing that commitment to it far into adulthood, past the age when it’s socially acceptable to ride around in a school bus smoking weed and listening to Slayer, can look like protracted adolescence. This is why skateboarding, for a large chunk of the country, will never fully outgrow its degenerate associations. And that’s fine.” It is notoriously difficult to produce a genuinely great piece of writing about skateboarding, but Noah Gallagher Shannon’s profile of Grant Taylor ticks all the boxes. Send it to your mom.
QS Sports Desk: More excited for the off-season, than we were for like, the entire second half of the postseason. And if you think Lebron is coming to the Knicks you need to move to Mars.
Quote of the Week: “Hell no I don’t watch soccer. A bunch of buddies kicking balls? I’m good.” — Meatball
QS is perpetually giving 90% of skate video editors a hard time for their uninspired marriage to Big L + and this idea that basically all rap still needs to sound like nineties rap (how boring does that sound tbh?), but we’ll throw you guys a bone here because there’s a substantial chance you haven’t heard this one before, and it’s really fun:
There are a multitude ways to be nostalgic. Some fondly tell yarns of the past, remembering the wild days of to-go margaritas being consumed in public, and bust-free, straight [fucking] ledges existing in lower Manhattan. Others spend their precious years on earth leaving comments about how Lil’ Wayne ruined hip-hop on YouTube videos. More and more skaters are winking at the past via fashion; outlets like Vintage Sponsor have made a name for themselves by trafficking in garms from skateboarding’s sartorial lineage. Our more talented colleagues time travel through tricks nobody is supposed to do anymore, via the darkslide, pressure flip or street grab’s increasing presence in modern videography.
A new form of loving past eras has recently began to take form. In the past nine months, the following events have occurred in New York:
1. Pyramid Ledges has been unknobbed for the first time since 2010, ending the longest drought the spot has experienced since the building first began skateblocking it in the early 2000s.
Our good friend Michael Gigliotti made an eight-minute bro cam clip that features parts from himself, Miles Marquez and Alex “$80 Baseball Cap” Olson. It’ll make you really happy you live near the Tompkins though.
Spot Updates: 1) The CBS 52 ledge over the six stair is sort of a wrap, though someone will find a way to boardslide it with a lot of wax. 2) There’s a new box at 12th Street, just in time for iced coffee season. 3) There are some temporary gaps all down Lafayette Street that’ll likely get filled in with cement by the end of the week.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Honestly, can’t think of anything that stands out above the rest from the past week, aside from Tony Parker’s entire Game 3 performance. (P.S. We’re Spurs fans here from here on in, because they’re the only team left that can beat Miami.) Still sorta amazed the Thunder blew it yesterday. Also, you should read Grantland’s history of the 2002 western conference finals between the Lakers and Kings. It’s mad sad though. Biebel probably teared up reading it.
Quote of the Week: “Tiesto is my favorite.” — Geo Moya
12th & A lives. There was an East Village community board meeting this past Thursday to decide its fate, and skateboarding prevailed. It’s open 5-8 P.M. on weekdays, 12-8 P.M. on Saturdays, and unfortunately closed on Sundays. Better than nothing. Hopefully, it will open earlier during late-fall and winter weekdays, since it gets dark at 4:30. (Also, there’s a new ~15-foot-long round flatbar there, and they sawed the legs off the larger picnic table to make it “Cali size.”)
“Gyro” is a montage filmed in New York over the course of two weeks via the same crew that brought you the SF-based Chunder and VHS1K videos.
Some kid wallrid off that giant bottle sculpture near 57th Street on the Westside Highway, which is pretty gnarly. It would make a great photo. Photo here. That trick, and six minutes of other NY/NJ/Philly-based footage in this “Gravity Hammers” clip.
The first summer edition “Diamond Days” video (#62) is now online. It utilizes the early frontrunner for “Song of the Summer 2012,” Cash Out’s “Cashing Out” A.K.A. “Yeah, it’s the ‘Racks’ of 2012, but it’s not as good as ‘Racks.'” Grown & Sexy S.O.T.S. early honorable mention: Usher “Climax.”
Nate Rojas’ part from Five on That is on YouTube. He 5050s the kinked handrail outside the Tribeca jail skatepark.
SPOT UPDATES:1) The rail gap and keyhole ledge at CBS are now blocked off by scaffolding. 2) The gas station on 15th & 10th with the flat rails got torn down. Near the end of this clip, Gigliotti does a line there in a controversial hat. (Aren’t there ~six gas stations south of 96th Street? Why the hell are they tearing them down?) 3) Those awful marble windowsill ledges on 4th and Bowery got knobbed.