Just in time for the coldest weekend of the winter, here’s the full video from last month’s Puerto Rico trip with Ishod and the Most Productive Crew™ in New York City skateboarding. Many of us are in our third year of embracing Puerto Rico as the east coast’s winter retreat, so we stepped a bit outside of our San Juanese comfort zone to cruise around New York’s sixth borough.
Outtakes and field notes from the trip can be found here and here.
Features Ishod Wair, Cyrus Bennett, Cory Kennedy (first-ever line holding a #boom? The high-tech S.A.D. towel of 2016?!), Eric Koston, Bobby Worrest, Justin Brock (who unfortunately got hurt two days into the trip), Andrew Wilson and Max Palmer. Filmed, edited and #skatevideohouse music supervised by Johnny Wilson from Space Heater.
The two guys who skated from Boston to New York skated from New York to Philly this past summer. The Backstreet Atlas Guide to New Jersey premieres on Thursday, January 29 at 7 P.M. Kinfolk Studios, 94 Wythe Ave in Brooklyn. Flyer here.
“This guy snorted a line of cocaine and then crooked grinded a 12 stair rail — This will blow your mind.” Every now and then, Slap comes through with unparalleled levels of brilliance: 2016 Ride Channel Title Predictions.
Someone went and took all the raw Max Palmer outtake footage from Johnny’s video blogs, and turned it into a fun part edited to one of the aughts’ flirtiest love songs :)
“Whereas Lennie Kirk fused spirituality with a certain on- and off-board brutality, Jereme Rogers proffers an elixir of wealth-seeking Christianity and shameless excess that seems suited to Las Vegas’ neon-heated Gamblor lairs, all-u-can-consume buffets and drive-thru wedding chapels.” Boil the Ocean on 5BNY, Vase, geographic anchors, and re-re-re-starting Jereme Rogers’ career.
QS Sports Desk: “Never have two teams with as high a combined winning percentage as San San Antonio (38-6) and Golden State (40-4) met this far into the season.”
Quote of the Week: “I’m a skater, I’m not a squirrel suit guy.” — Cyrus Bennett
Puerto Rico — like every other skate destination in the world — has its fail safes. Just as you can’t get through a “Summer Trip to New York” clip without someone skating the Rector Street Bench or doing a trick over the wall at Columbus Park, Puerto Rico has its unavoidable trappings that appear in every last bit of getaway coverage. You end up having to roll the dice: either make the half-hour/45 minute drive to the smaller cities outside San Juan and hope you find spots, or go where you know there’s going to be shit to skate, even if Robert Lopez Mont fakie flipped it back in some obscure video from 1974.
These safe spots are places you’ve seen throughout Puerto Rico’s current tenure as skateboarding’s de facto winter getaway — the black marble low-to-high, the ledge plaza in Rio Piedras, or the photogenic-but-apparently-really-tough-to-skate bowl in La Perla, which we avoided due to a #nomoreskateparks rule set in place.
And as tired as you may be of seeing the lil’ black marble low-to-high and bank combo spot that Conor Prunty shut down this time last year, you’d be hard pressed to find a more relaxing spot. Comes with a guy who climbs up in the tree to get coconuts for you, a nearby beach, and the world famous El Hamburger just a block skate away. Last round of extras above, #tbt below, and full clip dropping this February.
P.S. Walgreen’s out here has the fire gift sets for date night with bae.
This is our third January in a row of spending some considerable time in America’s never-ending prospective 51st state, and what Billy Rohan once coined as the sixth borough of New York City. Past journeys — short of a day trip to the eastern island of Vieques — have kept us conveniently in San Juan, where the majority of the #trending Puerto Rican winter phenomenon keeps its home base. The island is big, but not that big: driving from San Juan to the west side is like driving from New York to Philly, except you stare out the window and see rolling hills rather than…the Linden refinery.
Mayaguez is one of the main cities on the west side of the island, and with one night in San Juan, we trekked the hundred miles there. After a pit-stop for the trip’s official sustenance (Medallas and arroz con pollo), a mini concrete racetrack-type spot with a Flushing-width gap in the middle, and a spot check at an abandoned waterpark visible from the highway (we got kicked out by stoned security guars in under ten minutes), we made it to Mayaguez with about an hour of daylight left to skate one of the funnest parks any of us had ever been to.
Filmed by Johnny Wilson
One of Mayaguez’s standouts skate-wise is a gigantic University of Puerto Rico campus. Like most college campuses, you could theoretically skate it for a week and not get bored — provided you never got kicked out. We skated for two hours later than we were expecting to, and then headed towards the well-lit park in Aguadilla.
Next day was a trip to more-or-less the most scenic park imaginable in Quebradillas, where we bumped into the squad from Shorty’s. Off the parks for the rest of the trip, and in these streets talking about shit Robert Lopez Mont did. (“Yeah man, Robert fakie flipped that three story drop when he was 14, man.”)
Took last week off for some administrative duties. Previously:Part one, part two.
15. Le Basket Discontinues Outdoor Seating
It has been observed that skateboarders are the original gentrifiers. The undesirable corners of society are familiar territories to us, especially if they have something we want. And what do we, Skateboarders: The Original Gentrifiers™, want more than a place to get drunk? A place to get drunk in public, naturally.
Of course we’ll sit in plain view on Broadway, looking completely unemployable with our boards stacked along the wall, and the aluminum remnants of six six-packs teetering off the table. It wasn’t long until others took notice of the cheap real estate, and started closing in. By 2010, we were sharing ~fifteen seats with ~fifty bike messengers. By 2012, NYU students with a thirst for Magic Hats priced us out. In 2015, the party was shut down, but we barely noticed.
