2020 — the year that we hold responsible for many of our present woes — didn’t even start that bad.
They fixed the ground at the ledges across from Columbus Park! Seemingly out of nowhere! Here was a spot that we had only vicariously experienced in old videos, passed by zillions of times thinking, “Man, if only the ground wasn’t shit,” and maybe forced a session on every half-decade. And it was renovated!
Two ledges! With ends! A block from the hellish Bermuda-esque Triangle formed by Family Court x Blubba x Courthouse at that!
2021 began with a similar moment of spot serendipity. The Money Longer alien who took over the lease of the Men in Black towers in 2016 descended and flattened out the second, less iconic fountain at Flushing.
“I went from being a kid skating on my block to hanging out with all the best skaters in New York City because I learned how to do a frontside 360 boneless.” A friend once had a story about how their book club took a razor to The Powerbroker and sliced it up into three books to make it more reasonable of a read. This isn’t that dramatic, but a blog interview that takes over two hours to read is a lot for most people in the era of byte-sized #content — but we’re *SO* happy that people are putting detailed, rich content on the internet that requires a commitment! Isn’t that what it’s for?! The Slam City Skates blog’s interview with Eli Gesner about skateboarding + graffiti in New York in the 80s, night clubs in the early 90s, the beginnings of Shut + Zoo York, etc. is like a little history book :)
Given the QS office’s loveaffair with the city of Copenhagen, we decided to link up with our friends at Street Machine to promote the romance in skateboarding ♥ Quartersnacks for Street Machine ♥ will be available this Friday, July 21 at Street Machine (duhhh), Civilist, Slam City Skates, Arrow & Beast, Ben-G, Lockwood and Labor. Also available on the QS webstore at midnight on Friday, E.S.T.
Rest in Peace, Cup and Saucer, which will serve its last bacon, egg and cheese today. Thank you for giving us a comfortable place to eat breakfast in the winter while everyone else is late to meet up. You will be missed.
Nobody skated the Banks in the years leading up to them closing, because like, they sucked. Seven years passed. People got really good at skateboarding. And now everyone skates at theBanks again ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Andrew Skateshop continues to push new wave Miami skateboarding with their new promo, “Loso,” which includes a full part with Carlos Mendoza from Drama.
LurkNYC posted eight minutes of raw John Shanahan footage. Does anyone remember which part he skates off the rock and over the wooden bench a few hundred feet south of Three Up Three Down? Can’t find the footage.
With tensions between the U.S. and Russia running high these days, let’s lighten the mood with some links from behind the former Iron Curtain! 1 — Hungary) Eastern Europe’s Most Productive Crew, the Rios boys, come through with a new one entitled “Visít.” 2 — Abkhazia) The guys at Absurd Skateboards have an uncanny ability at skating spots that look like they’re locations from a creepy horror movie. Their trip to the partially-recognized nation of Abkhazia is no different, although the mood lightens after the first song. 3 — Mother Russia herself)What Youth has a video essay / interview with Tolia Titaev about the Russian skate scene.
Krak has been prolific in bringing us video Cliffnotes of every name-brand spot as of late. The latest installment comes from the second most famous ledge over a grate gap on planet earth (the first one being in Italy obvs, as it’s maybe the most famous non-Philadelphian or Barcelonian ledge spot altogether), and the longest still-standing marquee obstacle in New York city limits.
Though it’s not arranged chronologically, it really goes to show you how psychotic the progression of skating has been in the fifteen years since a long switch back tail was an extra sslloowweeddbanger in a video part. Gino was just talking about how kids being able to hop on a ledge and sit on it is a symptom of “I can’t remember a single trick from that part”-syndrome. At least the the reigning king of sitting on the grate probably has a 516 area code, and did all of his more noteworthy maneuvers before superhuman abilities to sit on ledges became more common. Everything post-Reres has been more or less a blur via obligatory clips in “Summer Trip to New York” edits.
A few footnotes…
– The first footage of this thing in mind is Rodney’s crook and S.J’s front tail in Peep This. (Or was it Heads?) Bici had the first footage of Flushing altogether that I can recall in Mixtape, though he skated the outside of the ledge. He’s also the last person to ever film a slide on the outside of spot as well ;)
– The only notable omissions that come to mind are 1) Moya’s switch front nose, which I swear was in a Metrospective clip but nobody remembers it, nor is it easily traceable. 2) Joey Pepper’s kickflip back lip and lipslide to noseblunt pop up thing. 3) Someone back smithed it right? McFeely in Solo Jazz. 4) Jack Sabback’s frontside nosegrind revert in the middle of the ledge. 5) I’m sure there are more, but these sort of things are next to impossible to be 100% comprehensive on.
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