Modern architects have a fascination for building inclines that don’tserveanypurpose aside from skateboarding. Is there some unprecedented rise in skateboarders going to architecture school? Because there isn’t much of an explanation as to why this place has to be draped with banks on all sides. Or maybe they just caught onto the whole inclines = skateboarders thing, and get a kick out of watching people get upset / pretend to get upset (See: Cooper Union) as soon as the entire surface gets cut up with black wheels marks. There has probably been at least one conference call throughout history between a client and an architecture firm that went along the lines of “The building you designed for us is covered with skateboarders every hour of the day, what the hell?”
We need to start attacking the system from the inside, bro! Major in architecture for a brighter future. Build skate-stopper-stoppers in every object you make.
Enjoi went to Kazakhstan, so Slovenia isn’t much of a stretch (although it’s kind of wild that this spot is said to be in a relatively small town.) Someone’s going there in the next year.
Blackout was a video released by Satva Leung in 2001 or 2002 as a promotional piece for his of-the-time venture, Judah Skateboards. Much like Zoo York’s E.S.T. series, it is an assortment of montages split up by region, and provides a nostalgic look back at what New York skateboarding looked like ten years ago, before the internet changed everything, and kids got significantlybetter. (Here’s the photographic edition of “Ten Years Ago,” in case you missed it.)
A chronological list of observations:
Instrumental boops and bleeps have slowly become an outdated safety-zone for soundtracks in east coast skate videos. They had a stronghold on song choices in the beginning of the file sharing era, as they provided original music when record companies were looking for new candidates to sue for copyright infringement after their business model collapsed. Today’s standard seems to be bands from Brooklyn and Baltimore.
With the remodeling of the spot formerly known as Chinatown Ledges, and the demise of the big banks, we have lost the two dirtiest spots in New York (as rightfully pointed out in a Skateboarder article.) The Fat Kid spot might lay claim to that title today, but we’re open to alternatives for picking up strange diseases and rashes after falling.
Dag Park is an oft-forgotten entry on the “Spots I wish were still here” list. The best ledges / best ground combo in the city that you didn’t get kicked out of, circa 2000-2001.
People who move to New York with skateboarding largely in mind, but gradually lose interest (at least in actually skating New York, if not skateboarding altogether) in exchange for potentially lucrative art careers are not a new phenomenon by any means. The Muska has been on that program for quite some time.
Even though Dave Mayhew is disregarded by historians on the basis of his participation in The Storm, he has one of the best tricks ever done at the Banks. (Seriously, bikers are the only ones who ever launched off the big banks, and he backside flipped off of them…over a police barrier, i.e. he figured out how to treat the big banks like the small banks, pre-fence installation.) He was also ahead of the curve in doing impossibles out of tricks. Carroll had to step up and make it more legitimate, though.
Westchester spots look a lot like midwestern spots. Aside from Sue’s Rendezvous. That spot looks like it’s in Atlanta.
Remember when people who mostly skated Manhattan found out that there were a lot of recycled plastic benches out in Brooklyn?
The Flushing grate maintains to be one of the few New York skate spots where all of the best tricks have been done by locals. (For an internationally known spot, “local” means the tri-state area.) So other regions were never up for the title. James Reres will probably hold it for a while longer.
Anthony Correa would make a great Chrome Ball Incident post. The Zoo ad of the nollie half-cab crook revert at the Houston ledge has always been a favorite.
Blackout was the last video with enough foresight for future legends to give Geo “TOMA!” Moya the ender.
Continue reading for the montages of the other cities, just don’t expect anything great, as this video is being discussed for historical/archival reasons, not because it is exceptional in any way.
Wooh Da Kid (“All my white friends say Wooh Da Kid is rad! YES!”) actually made a significantly better Blackout recently. As there are probably ten non-disintergrated copies of this left on VHS throughout the planet, thanks goes to the original uploader.
