My Baby Takes The Morning Train — A Timeline of Skateboarding in the Subway

In a city where everything has been aestheticized by skate videos — curbs, trash cans, cellar doors — skateboarding inside the New York City subway system has still kept up an illusive mystique. We are hardly the only culture to fetishize the subway, which has tribute IG accounts chronicling the malarky that goes down on trains, right down to books celebrating the MTA’s use of Helvetica or cataloging its insignias. (Shout out BK!)

One of the great pitfalls of human psychology is that the more we can’t have something, the more we want it. Skateboarding in a subway station is no different. Every hurdle is revved up: there’s more people, less space, cops are generally angrier, the fines for getting caught are higher, and if your obstacle happens to involve a platform-to-platform connection, there’s an electrified third rail below. While the overall size of the system is about 850 miles, its A.B.D. list is still shorter than, say, Mambo Bar.

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Fulfill the Dream

The Muska Epicly Later’d, in summary. After years spent pining for a Muska Epicly Later’d, and it finally existing, there’s now a vast emptiness. Who do we lobby for now? …wait, what if the answer is already in front of us? Standing in the right of the frame?

Although it’ll mainly resonate with audiophiles, Muska told the stories behind his ten favorite boom boxes as a supplement to the episode.

Genesis made a feel-good iPhone edit to wrap the summer up.

Bobshirt’s latest is with a [presumably buzzed?] Richard Angelides. Always enjoyed his non-rave music entry in Ty Evan’s 1997 rave film, and 11-out-of-10 trick selection.

Can’t tell what happened with this and why it is only going online now — as it was supposed to come out, like, literally four or five years ago (maybe they just waited for angst to start trending again) — but Death Video is now online in full. Features much, much younger versions of Tyshawn, Kempsey, Troy, etc.

With the potential end of Muni looming in the future, this was fun to watch (although admittedly, it is nowhere near as good the Big Three of Philadelphia skate spots) — The guys from Municipal Skateboards filmed a montage exclusively at the Philadelphia Museum of Art a.k.a. the Rocky steps.

The B.Q.E. Lot is set to be renovated by the D.O.T. at the start of next year, and it’s going to look exactly like that shitty space around the Flatiron Building with sandpaper ground and random rocks everywhere. Can’t we just get a ledge?

Online for the first time? The subway skating section from Colin Read’s Tengu.

A couple quick ones from Palace in the Puig era: Brady by Lucas, Lucas by Lucien.

Lacey Baker, Sarah Meurle and Josie Millard skate around Manhattan for a women’s shoe that Nike released. Max isn’t the only one who likes skating broken lampposts ;)

North Skate Mag has a chill interview with Mike Blabac.

“Does all this mean that New York is vanishing? Sure. But the deli wasn’t there forever, either. Vanishing is what New York does.” Roctakon’s brother wrote a rad thing about revisiting the Brooklyn delis that he had photographed back in 2008.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: This is the most Melo has passed in his career.

Quote of the Week
Torey Goodall: “What do you got there?”
Hydrated Gentleman: “A water.”
Torey Goodall: “An N.A? Nice.”

Neatly Wrapped Sandwiches

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Alex Olson started a lil’ skate talk show called “Skate Wise” on Know Wave Radio. The first episode is on Soundcloud. It’s the talk show equivalent of a bunch of dudes sitting around on a couch ranting about skating after a session. No real format or try-hard radio personas, which is nice. “I love Ishod, Ishod is sick. Yeah, he drinks beer.”

2013 Q.S.S.O.T.Y, Leo Gutman, has a new jazz-tinged mini part for Acapulco Gold.

Frozen in Carbonite on the custom, 1-of-1 Sal 23 Nike SB Dunk Low colorway. “I’m not sure if I’m going to skate them or just stunt around for the summer. In any event, as you can imagine, they pair well with Light-Ass Denim.™”

Jason Dill: Post-Mindfield and pre-“cherry” remix video.

Keelan Dadd? No disrespect to anyone listed, but the #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Epicly Later’d that “needs” to happen is Muska. #10 is Sheffey.

Video blog #211 from the Beef Patty guys, with some block-long Max Palmer lines.

Here’s the Richmond, VA-based Recordings of Boardings video, Off the Record. The RAW VIDEO was online all weekend, but got taken down and is now only available for preorder in hard copy form. Based on one viewing of that project, Boston seems to be one of the final east coast refuges for jean shorts. Could the Celtics be in the market for a Josh Harrellson acquisition?

After seeing one in Static 4, and another one in this Capita Skateboards clip, it might be time to officially place frontside 5050 backside 360 outs on 2014’s #trendwatch. Also could happily spend the remainder of human existence without hearing another Big L or Wu-Tang song in a skate video, but Redman might forever have a pass :)

The all-subway skating section from Tengu is now on YouTube. Shout out M.N.M.F.T.B.

They’re trying to make make the Santa Monica Courthouse a legal skate spot. Of course, it involves skateboarders being patient, not stupid, etc, so there’s an uphill climb ahead. America is utter garbage for skateboarding, btw #eurowithdrawl.

The security guards at that new pop over rail by the 7th Avenue banks are going to have a fun summer. P.S. They’re already reknobbing the ledges at Seaport 5.0.

QS Sports Desk: Melo’s opting out. Who cares.

Quote of the Week: “What the hell is the tristate area? Ain’t no tristate! Jersey and New York — that’s the tristate.” — Overheard Angry Guy on the Phone

Yes.”

Stick to Love

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Been slow around here for 2014, guys. Sorry :(

Any form of new Rick Howard coverage is skateboarding’s equivalent of an Andre 3000 guest verse. (Speaking of which…)

Alltimers tees now available at Supreme.

Chapman, New York’s longest standing skateboard producers, relaunched their website. It features an awesome archive of past boards, ranging from old Zoo decks, Supreme art boards, the short lived Illuminati Skateboards, and others.

SkateZines.com is a new project from the crew behind SkateAndAnnoy.com, which puts itself to the seemingly impossible task of cataloging all available skate zines of today and info on where to obtain them.

The New York rooftop montage from the opening of Tengu is now available online.

This Japanese guy has a really good kickflip.

Frozen in Carbonite on how P.J. Ladd is like skateboarding’s Bill Belichick — but actually, maybe how he is more like skating’s J.D. Salinger. Or some shit.

A brief, new interview with Bobby Puleo about spot preferences, neighborhoods, and never listening to O.C’s second album despite being a big fan of his first. (Jewelz is obviously nowhere near as good as Word Life but has some moments.)

Another quick interview: NY Skateboarding chats with Kevin Tierney.

New video log from Johnny Wilson and friends. Tricks on Houston Street construction are apparently still trending.

A detailed (!) interview with Rob Brink that might shed some light on what it’s like to work in the skateboard industry outside of sales, or you know, being pro.

New Bolts Hardware 4-5-6 clip with Chris Hart.

Non skate-related link alert! This GQ story about how Mexican cartels get drugs across the United States border these days is wild.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Well, Paul George did a 360 windmill dunk in-game, but…um, Ramon Sessions (yeah) somehow dunked on Lebron the next day…

Quote of the Week
Observant Gentleman: “She looks way better in photos than in real life.”
T-Bird: “Well, she was the hottest girl at Westway on New Year’s Eve…when I showed up at 5 A.M.”

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#TeamSweatpants

Germany doing cool things with skateboarding is becoming a common theme on QS.

The FTC Book blog has been posting snippets / mini-interviews with various people in the lead up to the book’s release this fall. Huf on his song in Penal Code 100A, Aaron Meza on filming for Finally…

A clip of the Palace and Polar jam in Leeds this past weekend, featuring Danny Brady, Pontus Alv, Benny Fairfax, and…Shawn Powers.

An interview with Manolo, the guy who painstakingly re-dubs sounds and researches the depths of skate video history for all those “Best of” tribute mixtape clips.

Iron Claw Skates with a disco-tuned Daniel Stone in New York mini-part and a trip to Baltimore. The fact that people are editing 4:3 iPhone fisheye footage alongside VX1 clips furthers the equivalency theory. Also, VX1000s are just stupid.

In anticipation of his first work of erotic skate fiction, Roctakon started a Tumblr for his musings. RT if you want to read so the publishers know…

Elijah Cole’s standalone part in Cathode, in which he does a 10/10 hardflip on flat.

Some historic reading for your afternoon: The story of Nimbus skates, the New York company that existed between Shut and Zoo York, and Zoo co-founder, Eli Gesner on skateboarding in New York in the eighties and nineties for Dazed Digital’s 1993 series. (Though this is the far better Gesner-written article on the same subject.)

This was uploaded in 2010, but has been re-making the rounds on Tumblr for the past week: Skateboarding in Brooklyn, circa 1989.

The second teaser for Colin Read’s video, Tengu, which will be premiering later this month.

Spot Updates: 1) The final remodeled version of Bubble Banks = Two two-up-two-down manual pads, and some wooden benches that are going to get knobbed, but that you could still ollie over. 2) One of the few spots in lower Manhattan that you had a chance of not getting kicked out of is, in the best case scenario, not going to be skateable for a long time.

Quote of the Week
Inquisitive Gentleman: “How are you doing?”
Torey Goodall: “Good. Pretty bad.”

Weird, 2:16 P.M. is also the best time to show up at the T.F.