2014 New York Skateboarding Year in Review: 5-1

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Final post of the year. Previously: 25-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 2014 in T.F. Obstacles.

Happy New Year. Be safe tonight if you’re inclined to go outside.

5. The Burning Question of 2014: “Is Chinese Seaport #Legit?”

It is bad enough that our culture has been diminished to an abyss of spots-that-aren’t-really-spots and Houston Street construction scraps. New York-based skateboarders have now found themselves overthinking miracles like the resurrection of Seaport.

“Does it look too much like a skatepark?”
“Will my footage here still look #core between the traffic barriers and late-night wallrides in my ‘Summer Trip to New York’-part?”
“Am I lame for thinking a metal ledge needs wax?”
“Will my friends back home say I sold out for not skating Reggaeton Ledges instead?”
“If there was some #urban graffiti on the ledge, would it be more #legit?”

Do you think the dudes at Para-lel, who attained ungodly manual and ledge abilities over the years, ever stopped to question as to whether or not their spot was *too* good? Americans, man.

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‘T-Shirt Brand’

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The Quartersnacks web store is now open with holiday gear. This includes hoodys, longsleeve tees, a light reissue of the Tompkins crew, and some beanies. Everything is available at Labor, Exit and Orchard right now. Other shops and abroad this week. Also, UK residents: Slam City Skates carries our stuff now. Support your local skate site. *Promise to update every day this week if you buy something* :)

Vote for Bobby. Pretty tight how he mentions Javier Sarmiento in his top three of 2014. Javi has a few lines at some insane spot and a great nollie backside flip in in this new, uh, Arnette clip. Warning: the first song is maybe the worst song to ever be put in a skate video. Had to detox by listening through Tha Tour twice afterwards.

TWS has a new “Five Trick Fix” from Paych. Buy here.

The loosest trucks in Korea.

Rigged a lil’ wear test video for the new Nike SB Grant Taylor shoe at Flushing a few weeks ago. Basically, if you skated that new Bruin shoe all last spring/summer like everyone else, but can’t find it anymore, your problems are solved. (BTW: You get kicked out of the fountain now? Or did we have bad luck?)

Tony Ferguson on the first-ever Girl tour to Europe. “Oh yeah, did you hear about the van? The van is gone too.”

SMLTalk reviewed an illegally downloaded version of True, while Frozen in Carbonite provided an analysis on the similarities between True, Questionable and Virtual Reality. A QS review of the new Plan B video? The trick Pudwill does over the Milan grate is psychotic and Sheckler should’ve skated to “Lifestyle.”

Josh Kalis v.s. Plastic Jersey Barriers: A Retrospective.

Someone was bound to edit a video part to “Coco” before the year was out.

A teaser for Strangers, which premieres at Sunshine on Wednesday.

Troy Stillwell’s B-sides from the Bev video.

In our continuing coverage of 2014’s most #ontrend day of the week: the 14-minute Tuesday video is now live (no, not the Makkonnen one…at least not really.)

Alltimers uploaded their commercial that was originally supposed to appear before Cyrus’ part in Paych. Johnny didn’t want to compromise his artistic integrity by putting an advertisement from a multimillion fashion conglomerate in the middle of his video, so he pulled it at the last minute. It’s online now for your viewing pleasure:

You might have heard about the Coda Long Island City indoor spot. Here’s a clip.

All things considered, this went as good as it possibly could have gone.

Boosie woke up this morning like fuck that.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Guess who?

Quote of the Week:

puds

T-shirt brand crazy? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Never Drop That Alcohol

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Happy internet list season! Best Instagram Post by a Pro Skateboarder — 2014. #coachellacrew

15 seconds of unseen Jake Johnson footage from a 2007-ish Adidas footage tape.

Ishod Wair’s Paych part in Paych. While you’re at it, give Paych a vote for “Best Indie Video of the Year” over on the Transworld site. Purchase here.

Volume #10 of the cell phone footage from the Paych dudes. Based on the increasing ratio of skateboarding : night club footage in these, the “Most Productive Crew” title will no longer be relevant by February fashion week. Maybe they make it to September.

Boil the Ocean on the most controversial backside flip to never happen. Who has a nice TV and wants to host a Plan B premiere tomorrow? Preferably below 14th Street.

Not in the habit of referring people towards L.E.S. Park footage, but the shit Brandon Westgate does in his Ricta commercial (Ricta!) is pretty wild.

“Nah, I never had [360 flips] like that. Never over something or down anything. Never consistently. There would maybe be a day here or there where I would have them lovely on flatground but then they’d be gone. I could never hold on to a good tre flip.” All of us “I learned how to 360 flip 100 times, but forgot how to 360 flip 101 times”-people have something in common with Gino Iannucci! Similarities end there :(

Far from comprehensive, but Kingpin has a brief R.I.P. Para-lel edit. (Also: Relevant.)

500 Degreez-centric #musicsupervision is cool. The end of that clip isn’t.

TWS has a detailed interview with Danny Renaud about coming back from the dead. Dude would probably make a good Epicly Later’d.

Skate Witches 2k14: Brujas, the all-girl Latina skate crew from The Bronx.

Get me back to Paris.

The new Lurk NYC video, Strangers, will be premiering at Sunshine Cinemas on Wednesday, December 10 at 8 P.M. Flyer here.

Spot Updates: This might be a few weeks late — like, who really even skates downtown anymore? — but the slanted ledges at Battery are back. The ground is a little worse, and the runways a bit narrower due to some new pre-knobbed benches in the way. They even threw in a four-stair and two new manual pads. No telling if it’s a bigger bust now, but the “No Skateboarding” signs are all still up.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Russell Westbrook for M.V.P

Quote of the Week: “I hate the woods, have you ever seen The Blair Witch Project?” — Matthew Perez

In the event that you need a Monday morning dose of idiocy

Who Do You Skate With in the City When I’m Not There?

ashy

Season starts this week :) Daylight-saving time ends next week :(

1) You can buy copies of Johnny Wilson’s new video, Paych, for $10 here. Labor is supposed to be getting copies this week. The DVD also includes Beef Patty. 2) Living up to the “Most Productive Crew” trademark, those dudes already have another video on the way. 3) It’s mad sad that the VX is dead yo.

Amazing: Drunk dude calls cops on skateboarders, ends up getting arrested himself.

The bro Lil’ Lui has a video check out on the TWS site. Features footage of the 29th Street ollie from last week’s Monday headliner image.

Can’t remember the last time a part ended with a switch front shuv. What a great trick.

Not only are clubs likely seeing higher revenues on Tuesdays, skate videos are also getting made to commemorate 2014’s most on-trend day of the week.

SMLTalk listi-cized their five favorite friends sections. A notable snub / personal favorite is the one at the end of Mixtape, which pretty much nails the vibe you want any friends montage to have, not to mention features maybe the second best 360 flip ever done. Also, the Blind section from Virtual Reality belongs there off G.P. Mariano’s trick is incredible no matter what decade you’re talking about.

New Juicy Elbows clip up on YouTube. The ender is wild.

The 181st Street Park got a fresh paint job for its first birthday:

Rick Howard is on magazine covers again.

Gino + Dill + Kool G Rap + Manolo remix to commemorate new partnerships.

Backing the #musicsupervision in the new Matt Miller part.

Skating for Polar seems like it requires more heavy lifting than any other sponsorship.

Hjalte v.s. Aaron Herrington v.s. Joseph Delgado v.s. Brian Clarke in S-K-8.

Happy Halloween from Quan and Thug.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Bogut figured out how to throw mini Kevin Love passes now?

Quote of the Week:

phil

Rest in Peace Matt Reason. One of the main reasons people use the phrase “east coast” as an adjective to describe skateboarding.

An Interview With Johnny Wilson

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Photo by Colin Sussingham

You can probably recognize Johnny Wilson’s crew when you see a mob rolling twenty-five deep to a Manhattan skate spot. In a city full of cop-outs (“We got kicked out because there were too many people,” “There are no good spots anymore,” “It’s too easy to get caught up partying,” etc.), they have managed to complete four full-length videos in two years, all while releasing a weekly video blog series, which is up to volume #214 right now. That’s roughly ten or maybe thirty hours of footage, in a place that we often insist to be pretty frustrating to skate in. These guys might truly be the most productive skate crew in the history of New York skateboarding.

A week from the premiere of his new video, Paych, we talked to Johnny about where they come from and how their operation functions. Sorry for not including the obligatory “VX V.S. HD!” and “Is the internet ruining skate videos?!”-questions ;) ♥

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Where are you from?

Born in South Florida, moved to New Jersey because my dad worked in the city, back to south Florida, and then to Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, which is the capital and two-and-a-half hours from Philly. Once I graduated high school, I moved to Brooklyn.

How’d you get into skateboarding?

I have two older brothers, Mitchell and Andrew. If one did something, we all had to do it. My oldest brother started, so we all had to start. I’ve been skating since I was around seven-years-old.

Were you always the dude with the camera, or was that later down the line?

This kid in our town [in Pennsylvania] made a little video when I was in seventh or eighth grade. He stopped filming immediately after, so I asked to borrow his camera to film my brothers and our friends. It was a shitty Panasonic with a baby Death Lens. After that, I got a bigger Panasonic, which was sort of the predecessor to the DVX. I ended up trading the Panasonic for a VX1000 to this dude in Long Island. I cannot believe that trade went through; I definitely got the better end of it. The dude even emailed me saying “I’m not really feeling this camera. Could we trade back?”

Alternate YouTube Link

Where’d you trade for it, Skate Perception?

Yeah, the kid who I originally got my first camera from had an account on there. He stopped filming, so he ended up giving me his camera, and eventually his Skate Perception password. He had 500+ posts, which grants you permission to post in the classifieds.

When I got the VX, I had no idea how to use it. This dude Kevin Winters, who made Bruns and has maybe five VX1000s, really helped me out with how to set everything up.

Were you only filming friends around your town at that point?

Both of my brothers went to college in Philly, and I was a senior in the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania, so I’d be going out to Philly every weekend to skate with them.

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