Stalin Plaza | Quartersnacks

It’s 5 Hours Somewhere

Daily News September 23rd, 2019 · 12:00 am · 3

Photo via Zach

Nice! So we made it two weeks without having to rally for a skate spot’s survival on a Monday Links post… This time, the spot is an ocean away, but in this media enterprise’s opinion, it’s the best spot in the world — even better than Tompkins when there are two boxes! Everyday Hybridity has the most current update on Prague’s Stalin Plaza being fenced off / condemned to renovation.

It’s all fun and games until Balenciaga actually does a renegade runway show at Blue Park next September.

A dear friend, “Zach from Crown Heights,” called into The Brian Lehrer Show’s episode about the “cost of climate resilience” to provide a T.F. anecdote to the ongoing battle with the East River Park renovation. The convo in question happens just after the 17-minute mark. Whole episode is worth listening to if you want some context as to how this whole issue came to be in the first place.

Skate Spot Porn: Prague’s Stalin Plaza

Features & Interviews September 5th, 2018 · 5:55 am · 8

Fall 2018 marks ten years since Billy Rohan rescued those slabs of marble from Albany’s defunct Shelter Skatepark, with which he would go on to create the best iteration of 12th & A that there ever was. Through the spring of 2013, 12th Street became a rare place to skate straight, stone ledges in lower Manhattan without having to worry about a kick-out. I remember Billy being in awe of how he and Curtis Rapp pulled off this marble heist and installation without a hitch: “This spot is perfect — it feels like Stalin Plaza, except instead of marble ground, I have to settle for a basketball court.”

I also remember that when we were doing the interview for this old segment about the Chapman Skateboards archive, Gregg mentioned how Billy equated their patented technology for a “performance tip” (a piece of special plastic at the nose and tail of a board that kept your pop crisper for longer) to be like skating on Stalin Plaza ground at all times.

Apart from Billy’s anecdotal obsession with Stalin Plaza, I have wanted to go there since Harsh Euro Barge came out. It looked the right amount of different from any other European holy grail spot; something stood out about those arbitrary pieces of marble stacked on flawless ground, with a precision applied to the spacing between each one. How were these piles of beautifully sliced rocks left alone in a buildingless abyss?

This Summer Last Summer Like Déjà Vu

Daily News May 1st, 2017 · 4:14 am · 3

carl

Spring QS merch is trickling into shops in the U.S. Available now at Supreme New York & Los Angeles, Labor, NJ, Alumni [Nyack], 510, Andrew [Miami], Atlas, Civil, DSM, Emage, Home, Humidity, Orchard, Pitcrew, Seasons and Uprise. Available in Japan now. Available in Europe, Korea and Canada next week. Available online next Monday, May 8th, at midnight E.S.T. Thx 4 the ♥

Congrats to Cyrus on his first magazine cover. Gonna party extra hard for the first cover he gets with his name actually spelled right ;)

Walker Ryan has low-key (mid-key?) spent the past few years doing some of the best tricks on the staple New York spots. Old Friends put together this five-minute A.B.D. edit of all his city footage. Respect to filming the World Trade out ledge from the Burger King window, and to the fact that the security guard standing at the bottom of the bank is basically a part of the Roosevelt Island spot, no matter the clip.

Quim Cardona and friends in the montage from Politic’s First Division video.

This video is dreadful, but Chris Pfanner does a beast line from the rail to the double bump-to-bars in the projects on Madison Street.

Drew Connors dropped a promo for Bailar II, featuring Shredmaster Keith advocating for the resurgence of the Polish Park ledges on McGuiness — A.K.A. Derick Ziemkiewicz Park. You can watch the first Bailar video here.

Genny uploaded his first iPhone video of the spring to a David Banner classic.

The last part of Making It Happen is online, via Patrick Vidal and some monstrous pop.

Jonathan Rentschler has a sick-looking new 176-page book coming out that documents the final three years of Love Park.

Haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but the latest Bunt episode is with Ryan Gallant.

Russian Bob and Reda put together this retrospective on New York skateboarding’s first videographer, R.B. Umali. Happy 40th R.B. (Rewatch his “Shoot All Skaters” episodes from a few years ago because they’re bomb.)

Boil the Ocean re: Chromeball Interview #100 with Danny Way.

Enjoyed this edit from London’s proverbial T.F., Gillett Square (“Crackba” is a sick nickname), which was outside of Torey’s first apartment in London :) Memories, man!

So do we buy tickets to Prague orrrrrr……?

Lol @ them skate-proofing this hellhole of a spot. Shout out Hjalte. Also, the Marcy Rails are done for. Thanks to Mike Heikkila for the intel.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: I hate Paul Pierce, but respect the fuck out of Paul Pierce, and now that he’s out of the league as of yesterday, I don’t hate Paul Pierce. Godspeed to one of the great NBA villains.

Quote of the Week: “Would you rather go to jail for one year by yourself, or go to jail for ten years with gang?” — J Boy

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Endless Shrimp is back!

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Wishy Washy

Daily News November 17th, 2014 · 1:24 pm · 5

yaje-jd

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

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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: