Turn On the Lights

It may look like a skatepark, but you can’t skate here.” — Volume 2

Four decades ago, Louis Kahn unintentionally designed an incredible skate spot, which is just now being opened to the public. The chances of ever being able to skate there for an excess of twenty seconds are likely non-existant.

“I get mad bodied.” Kevin Tierney stretching the grammatical boundaries of modern New York slang, and out-of-towners raising awareness of the disdain for “Two times if you know me” greetings in the northeast, in yet another “Summer in New York” clip.

Island Music is a video entirely filmed in Long Island by the same crew that brought you Missing Persons (which strangely disappeared from YouTube) last year. Based off the teaser, it looks like it’s going for a similar black-and-white jazzy feel. Anything inspired by the by the best skate montage in skate montage history is cool.

Skateboarding, fiction writing, and uh, Mike Carroll’s Modus Operandi part.

Where would east coast skateboarding be without the wallie? This clip has a lot of wallies, wallrides, and other NY/NJ/PA skate hallmarks.

Apple could call the iPhone 4S a different name, and millions of people would still ditch the current model for it. Crazy.

Is Palace the next Apple? The next Supreme? The next Menace? The next Maybach Music? Because this is wild (£137 = ~$220.) Also in the realm of skate-gear resale values, Lamborghinis apparently appreciate in value.

Events: 1) Polar Skateboards, Thrasher, Converse, KCDC, etc. are holding a Bum Rush the Spot event at the BQE Lot off Lorimer this Saturday, September 22 from 4 to 6 P.M., followed by a Polar art show at KCDC. 2) File under “Demos Grown-Ups Might Attend” — Cliché and DQM are holding a demo at the L.E.S. Park on Thursday, so you could see French Mariano skate in real life.

Spot Updates: 1) The remaining ledges at Seaport that were not knobbed, have all been barricaded off as of a few days ago. Again, New York sucks sometimes. Developers are idiots. Spot’s done. 2) Those new good material / bad set-up ledges on 53rd and Sixth got knobbed. 3) Oh, and those new high wooden blocks by the Banks / Fulton Street Burger King (R.I.P.) also got knobbed.

Our homie Ren made his first music video. Unlike Black Donald Trump, he doesn’t skate, but his video is chill. Everybody raps.

And once again: If you can’t ollie up it, don’t ollie down it.

Quote of the Week:


29 Random Things That Happened at #NYFW.” Check #9. We out here.

Here’s To Feeling Good All the Time

Our two friends, Adam Abada and Zach Baker, are taking upon themselves the intensive task of skateboarding from Boston to New York (on non-cruiser wheels) starting later this week. Read more about the project on their website, BackStreetAtlas.com, and follow the trip on Twitter/Instagram via @backstreetatlas.

Here’s a Cincinnati crew’s clip of a trip to New York. Features various Dobbin Block personalities. It seems that someone editing a skate clip to a song off the new Nas album happened quicker than everyone forgetting about it altogether. (“Oh Nas has a new album out? Is it in the ‘Best Nas album since It Was Written‘ category or the ‘Best Nas album since Stillmatic‘ category?”) Though to be fair, the clip is edited to one of Life is Good‘s better moments. The album’s highlight is him actually admitting he makes music for people stuck in the 90s.

Another early entry in the annual cycle of “Summer Trip to New York” clips, which usually lasts from late-July to mid-October. There’s a sick homage to Loki’s signature Astor Place move at 0:51.

Skateboarding over flood damage via The Weather Channel. *Insert skateboard documentary cliché about how “Skaters, like, totally see the world differently, dude.”*

Dedleg has a post up compiling the world’s greatest abominations of skatepark obstacles. Speaking of which, who’s the genius that built a concrete ramp up to a curb at the Fat Kid Spot?

New updates over at Phatstylez. A G-Man tribute, a Droors resurgence, No Limit gear and some other things.

In our weekly “Trip to Boston” link, Lurker Lou, Tyler, Kennedy Cantrell and the rest of the Iron Claw crew went up there to skate planets and eggs.

Brian Wenning has a new board company. If you were forced to make a decision, who would you rather skate for, Lockdown or Selfish? Jenkem Mag also has a new interview with Wenning about the company.

Watch Connor Champion’s part from the 2010 North Carolina-based YOUGOTTAGETTHAT video because A) He skates to Petey Pablo and B) He does a flatground kickflip in a line. Flatground kickflips in lines need to make a comeback.

Spot Updates: 1) The city removed the fat flat rails that were across the street from the Citibank building in Long Island City. 2) They knobbed another ledge at the Seaport. 3) Not sure how recent this is, but another mythological food establishment in downtown Manhattan skateboard lore has closed down. R.I.P. Wendy’s on Water Street. It now joins the ranks of the Fulton Street Burger King and the Water Street Burritoville.

Quote of the Week: “She’s hot, but she works at Alexander Wang, which is like working in a female trash compactor.” — Baptiste


Oh yeah. I’ve been known to drink a beer or two. But then again, I’ve been known to do a lot of things.”

‘NO ARM & HAMMER IN MY HANNAH MONTANA’

Everyone skateboards now! Miley Cyrus is into it! Rihanna skates! This girl skates! Everyone skates! What a fun way to get your cardio in! Sk8 or die, girls! Derek Zoolander |*ngb**rds! When is the male model game of S.K.A.T.E? My money’s on Ted.

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.

Death Video throwaway clips set to the soothing sounds of 2 Chainz.

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.

“Oh no, I’m completely fine. I do this all the time. Have a nice day.”

The Museum of Modern Art in Finland claims to currently have “the world’s first large scale skatable sculptural installation” on its premises. Stadium did that, like, last year, bro. Though to be fair, the Finnish one is a superior “skateable sculpture” for “normal” people and not Zered Bassett.

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.

Quote of the Week:


Straight bling-bling, whip it with an antenna

All My Whole Team Is Very Important, Straight Up

Monday links. Experimental grammar edition. Photo by Boss Bauer.

You know who’s kinda good at skateboarding? Lucas Puig. The illustrious Manolo mixtape series came through with a five-minute French Mariano tribute, accompanied by a left-field Big L remix. Even though we consistently state that French Mariano is superior to French Montana, a “Shot Caller” remix wouldn’t have been inappropriate.

New 30 seconds of footage from one of Queens’ finest, Luis Tolentino. (Related: 5050ing up a seven-stair rail is just normal now. Remember how that was a joke back when Yeah Right! came out?)

Apparently, people still skate spots that aren’t the new L.E.S. Park. Some bro cam footage from the BQE spot in Williamsburg.

The Philly-based Skate Jawn crew has a new issue of their ‘zine online, in addition to a new full-length video filmed mostly in the northeast.

Zabar’s caught onto our favorable trend forecast, which is pretty funny. How does this get turned into free or heavily discounted groceries?

With his third part this year (Note: It’s July), Mark Suciu is perhaps the first skateboarder to approach Wayne in 2006-2007 / Gucci in 2008-2009 levels of productivity and output. This one is filmed entirely at night and in downtown San Jose. We’ll happily curate an all-Midtown Manhattan edition in exchange for 15% of Habitat’s stock in the seemingly unshakeable brown pants industry.

Bad News! Don’t bother going up to 59th Street to skate any low ledges this summer. The entire monument has been fenced off.

More bad (maybe outdated) news! The eight-stair square rail at CBS got knobbed.

“Do you think it’s hard to get the rights for Biggie?” That seems to have been the case. Here’s Dennis Busenitz’s Roll Forever part remixed to the second or third best song off Ready to Die. Bumass WMG eased up, and finally liberated the audio. From the 2007 Real Remix Project DVD. Thank the Skate.ly library for the upload.

Can’t wait to see someone dressed like this at 12th & A. Whether or not he’ll also be mumbling “That’s the shit I don’t like” will be interesting to see.

Bronze / Flipmode’s 56k video: “Out later this week…maybe?”

P.S. Instagram-themed Rick Ross mixtape covers


We’re going to start a petition for a guest edit slot in the new Girl/Chocolate video. There’s a sneaking suspicion around the QS office that Ty Evans will forget to edit something to Future.

Where Were You During the Instagram Scare of 2012?

Buncha cute boyz with their shirts off @ da Supreme Ramp (never forget) 2009. Photo: John Roman.

New NJ Scum clip. Best skate crew channel on YouTube.

12th & A is back. Please refrain from any illegal conduct so we can avoid its fate from last winter, and not set skateboarding back five years due to adolescent idiocy.

These Skate Europe videos have been on VBS for three years. Never knew they existed until Frozen in Carbonite tweeted about them the other day. They’re incredible, and drive home the point of how much America sucks for skateboarding compared to Europe. “There was nothing on TV that night, so I just started making a mini ramp in the living room.”

If you want to listen to Jason Dill play music and talk shit, KCHUNG AM radio out in Los Angeles posted up a MP3 of his June 17th broadcast. No, it doesn’t really have anything to do with skateboarding. It is more about throwing a glass of Jameson at a DJ because he was scratching over Rolling Stones songs.

The crew behind the Be Pretty video put up a long throwaway reel. Part one, part two.

This may be a year late, and is certainly not for a very popular spot, but that low pop-over rail on 67th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway is now knobbed. A free beer for anyone who e-mails quartersnacks {*at*} gmail with a scan of Scott Schwartz’s 5050 on it from an old Transworld (or it might’ve been a Slap issue…)

Some unreleased footage of early-2000s Tompkins hero / perhaps the only Hare Krishna skater in the city, Kerel Roach.

People have been getting great deals on those discontinued Palace Chanel crewnecks on eBay. FYI: £201.11 British pounds equals $315 American dollars. Gonna start bootlegging those, like, today…

Speaking of Palace, as per the observation of Phat Stylez co-founder Sweezy F. Wasty, the Associated Supermarkets logo is strikingly similar to the Palace triangle. Perhaps we have stumbled on the next big thing for grocery store skateboard apparel.

The Miami Heat have the best basketball player alive and still cannot sell out their stadium during the post-season. Now that two Miami-based pornstars are offering oral sex to any Heat “fan” in celebration of their championship, will their “fans” begin showing up to the game before the 2nd quarter starts?

The New York Department of Transportation released a commercial with Baron Davis urging New Yorkers to pay attention on the street / not walk and text. Needless to say, it would’ve been way better if they used J.R. Smith…

Quote of the Week: “The less money someone has in their bank account, the more likely they are to win a game of S.K.A.T.E.” — Roctakon


Remember when a team with Eddy Curry and Ronny Turiaf on it won a NBA Championship? That sucked.