A Godfather of Six-Figure Ledge Skating [#TBT]

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So I often ask the subjects of these interviews who they consider to be the most underrated skater of the 1990s and your name has come up more than a few times. Do you think there were aspects of your career that went underappreciated or didn’t get their proper due?

Do I feel like I didn’t get enough shine? No. I don’t feel that way at all. To hear that people think that is awesome but I don’t feel that I’m owed anything or that something should’ve have gotten more praise than it did. At the end of the day, I don’t know what I could’ve done more than what I did. But that’s cool to hear.The Chrome Ball Incident / November 2, 2012

Nobody was as much of a precursor to today’s brand of highbrow ledge tricks as Jerry Fowler. Look no further than onetime six-figure ledge skater, Brian Wenning, admitting last week that the origin of the backside nosegrind pop-out craze (which very much still resonates in today’s fickle beanplanted times) leads back to a jack-move pulled on Jerry’s west coast-bred, east coast-honed bag of tricks.

Everyone knows that the “this could come out today and still hold up”-hyperbole is wishful thinking 95% of the time. Wenning says it about Photosynthesis in the aforementioned interview, but we have gotten lightyears past the new AM being able to end off his first part with a switch 360 flip down nine. Although his 411 section gets the most burn on the social media circuit, watch Jerry Fowler’s DNA Continuum part. You’ll see the half cab nosegrind revert fishhooks that Puig does, the frontside 180 no comply fakie 5-0s that Aaron Herrington does, and the backside shove-its into backside grinds that Hjalte does — a decade-plus before said tricks would come to occupy the minds of today’s most #trickselection savvy skateboarders.

Six-Figure Ledge Skating: The “Hundred Dollar Autograph” of the Skateboard World ;)

Wishy Washy

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Smoking is lame, but this photo is cool. Via Jersey Dave. Dave is also selling photo tees over on his website, so give him some money if you’re feeling generous today.

If you need some skate spot pornography to cheer you up on this rainy day, Kingpin ran a listicle of the “Top 25” skate plazas in the world. FWIW, Bercy is gone and Republiqué (see 1:33) took its place, and Para-lel is unfortunately on its way out soon. The #stalinplaza tag on IG is also a great way to kill a half-hour fantasizing.

Also, how could you forget about Eggs? The northeast’s last great ledge spot / plaza north of the Beltway.

Shorty’s Guilty is sorta the Caligula of skate videos.

This seems like an occasionally horrific endeavor: Two dudes snuck into an abandoned psych ward out in New York state…so they could skate inside it.

Here’s an an A.V.E. Gardner line and an A.V.E. interview.

It’s really cool to see Jerry Fowler still at it. His 411 Profile and tricks in the Rhythm industry section rank as some of the most frequent 411 revisitations, and even Strobeck admitted that he was the catalyst behind the backside nosegrind pop out’s development, which Pappalardo and Wenning later popularized among New Jerseyians in baggy jeans and DC Lynxes. Simply seeing the dude do a noseslide is sick. You can catch other parts from Orchard’s Stone Soup video here.

A wood pallet up to the never-functional water fountain at T.F. may be the most desperate Tompkins obstacle of 2014, but then, we are reminded of this.

Jerome Campbell likely locked up “360 Flip of the Year” honors earlier this fall, but Al Davis might’ve just snagged the switch title.

Slam City Skates has a cool feature about his five favorite photographs, which acts as a springboard for some stories behind the scenes of the past few Static videos.

Not a whole lot of subtlety going on in the Chocolate Epicly Later’d finale.

Five years later, still #relevant in this fashion game. Available for consulting, etc.

FYI: Mentioned this on Twitter, but all of you privy to riding the occasional “loose” Citi bike you may stumble upon — be careful. Got stopped for “running a red light,” only to have the cops run a serial number check to verify that it wasn’t stolen. Was completely random, and not in a sketchy zone at all. Be careful.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: J.R. Smith’s face after Trey Burke hit that game winner is priceless, especially since he hit the most J.R. Smith-esque game winner of the season, not by J.R. Smith, who hasn’t hit any game winners.

Quote of the Week: “I dead-ass saw him slap some dude dumb bigger than him.” — Andre Page

Friendly reminder that the best trick ever done down the Flushing six-stair manual pad wasn’t even a manual trick. New Jersey’s finest, 1999ish: