For a more curated best of 2022 run-down than our crowd-sourced one, Boil the Ocean is in the midst of its annual top ten list of the year’s finest video parts. Jahmir ✅, Elijah ✅ and Diego ✅.
“[Keith] saw that we had skateboards and asked if we wanted to skate his ‘run.’ This ‘run’ was a planned-out continuous route of spots he’d hit on a daily basis. You had to skate it fast and without stopping because there was traffic, open businesses, pedestrians and security guards — who knew Keith would be pushing through at some point after 3 P.M. when school was out.” Thrasher has an incredible retrospective feature that recounts stories from many of Huf’s closest friends.
Photo via the tumbleweeds. Tumblr in 2019 is like that one ledge spot that was popping five years ago. Everyone used to meet there, get clips there, get stuck there. Now it’s chunked up, the bevel got as round as Blubba, and it sorta just sits there. Maybe a group of guys in their 30s will skate it for 20 minutes before they go to the bar. Maybe a pair of kids in #curated thrift store finds visiting from out of town will film each other do two-trick lines for their trip edit on it. The solitary man who shows up after work once every two weeks to ensure that he hasn’t lost his back tails is always a fixture. But sometimes, all three of those end up there together, and it’s fun — not fun like the old days, but enough to remind you that they existed ;)
NBC visited Tompkins to speak with Zhu and Yaje about how much that square of asphalt means to the community. Please sign the petition to preserve Tompkins Square courts as an asphalt space, if you have yet to do so.
Medium has an awesome feature with Justin Bohl, a guy who has been the go-to tour guide for skate teams visiting Detroit over the past eight years. He put together a twenty-minute video entitled Mint, which features a bunch of behind the scenes footage of all the traveling skaters who have come through the city as it became sought-after skate trip destination in the 2010s.
“Ultra” from Chris Burt is up there with the Bos brothers’ “Wide Open” for 2019’s best videos outside of the Thrasher/Insta content spiral. It’s a Minnesota video with three parts, mostly filmed in the suburbs, yet somehow feels all the right ways different than a lot of the other stuff you’ve watched this past week. Ender part from Frog’s Pat Gallaher.
“Without that skater/photographer communication, you have no choice but to sit and wait for the photo to show itself. It felt like I had photographed a wild leopard in the jungle.” Bobby Worrest — 360 flip noseslide. Photo by Jeff Comber. Head over to King skate mag for the full blurb.
*First great video part of 2019 alert* The scientists at Palace realized they needed some young blood on the team and got Heitor Da Silva (alum from the same Swedish skate school as Oski) onboard. He has an awesome new Adidas part out right now (that backside flip, switch frontside flip line…), and an interview about his journey from Brazil to Norway to The Triangle™ over on Grey. Could have probably dug a bit deeper on the song, but oh well.
Me, you, and Cyrus Bennett have the same favorite skateboarder. Hint: he skates more than everyone, for longer than everyone, is older than everyone, and is more oblivious to what’s going on in skateboarding that everyone.
Traffic scanned a 2005 TWS article about a D.I.Y. tour they did in Hartford, Albany, Rochester, Akron and Pittsburgh back in the early days of the company, with words from Ricky, and a bunch of rad photos. Never knew they were the architects behind that still-running Albany bank-to-ledge. #respect.
The Village Psychic guys like Borough Hall a lot A.K.A. they made a video of all their 2018 iPhone footage. They look high, but when the hell were those plastic orange blocks there?
Spot Updates: Not the most oft-skated spot these days (unless you’re winding up there after getting kicked out of Bigscreen or something), but there’s not much to skate at Penn Plaza anymore, as the building put astro turf all over the upper portion of the spot.
YO, massive shout out to the crew, politicians, shops and community in Providence, Rhode Island, on getting an approval to turn an underused corner of their downtown into a full-on block of a skate plaza. Let this be a precedent for cities across the U.S.
“If they didn’t name me Genesis then my dad would have named me Jubilee, from X-Men, who was a girl. That would’ve been very funny. I’m glad they named me Genesis.” Sex mag (sure) has an interview with Genny re: growing up, DANY, etc.
Zered is on Alltimers, and has a new part out to reassure you of his decade-plus status as the east coast’s most productive pro, and the king of the worst spot in Queens ;)
“It’s still the same if I just don’t let myself become too jaded and reclusive. There are still endless possibilities.” Huck has a feature with Jerry Mraz, who they apparently dubbed “The Batman of Skateboarding.”
“We decided to make the game more fun so that’s why it was never a realistic simulation of skateboarding. That was key to the success of the game.” Ironic that the reason maybe 50% of the people now in their late 20s started skateboarding was something intended to be an unrealistic simulation of skateboarding. Jenkem has the oral history of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
Keeping a real skate shop open in 2017 is God’s work ♥ Thank you to all who do.
Rodrigo TX skates ThreeFour Up ThreeFour Down, T.J. does a bunch of crazy shit, and lol that there’s security standing at the bottom of the bank in every clip ever gotten at the Roosevelt Island Monument in this link to a clip with 54k YouTube views.
