Linklopolis

What a week. Labor announced that it was closing its Brooklyn location, DiVincenzo and Randle got traded, aaaaannnndddd the mayor got indicted.

ICYMI: We dropped a preview of the 2024 QS Cup last week. More details coming this week :)

Diego Najera, Brian Reid and Spencer Hamilton come together for the new Grand Collection edit. It passes as a blip in the edit itself, but everyone agrees that Brian Reid casually mannualing up the bank and over the barrier at the Front Street ledge makes zero sense in physics terms, right?

James from Labor is the latest guest on the Living Proof podcast + German Nieves was the latest guest on The Nine Club.

More »

Certified Skater Boy

“Smith knows that what becomes of Mosquito Beach is likely out of his hands. But that doesn’t dampen his impulse to keep building these spaces.” New York magazine’s Curbed publication profiled Pat Smith, Jerry Mraz, and the D.I.Y. skatepark scene in New York City, with Mosquito Beach as the focal point. (Apparently, a “sewage bomb” was unleashed on Newtown Creek following the storm last Wednesday, so it should be an interesting situation over there for a bit…)

“The era in which TD, Seagram, and similar plazas were constructed can be considered a ‘goldilocks’ moment in modern history, where the design of successful public spaces did not preclude the eventuality of skateboarding.” Michael Barker chronicles the simultaneously monumental and accidental influence of Mies van der Rohe in modern skateboarding for Village Psychic.

Wumbus Video” is an eight-minute video from Tom Albin, who brought you the Public Skateboarding full-length from late last year. Kickflip back smith on the curb to Billy Joel ender was fire :)

More »

Extralinkable

Frame via Mehring. Sorry that Rob’s a bit blurry. Hate hate HATE that Instagram replaced Tumblr for things that Tumblr was way better at doing, e.g. not compressing skate photos into goddamn 700px size, but then again, I’m sure someone was going on about the same thing when all the mags were going under, so…

Pssst…shops are getting spring/summer QS stuff in now. Online next Monday, May 13. More info soon ♥

The first Blobys edit in over a year! This one got a good deal of burn these past few days. Roman Gonzalez is the all-time leading scorer of making visual poetry out of tricks nobody else is getting away with :)

I guess people are just, like, nosepicking the side of the building at Blue Park now?

Lurker Lou premiered his new part — filmed entirely in purple Adidas Campus shoes he kept finding in Cape Cod Marshall’s locations — on a box truck decked out with L.E.D. screens this past weekend. Village Psychic made a video profile with Lou about his footwear-based artwork over on their site.

More »

Legends of the Spa

Four years after the Parks Department sabotaged the best obstacle at New York’s most famous still-standing skate spot, it has returned with a vengeance. Photo via Kyota.

It seems like we traded our annual office tradition of late posts on the Monday during Fashion Week for late posts on the Monday after Glory Challenge. No seasoned QS reader expected an on-time update today though, let’s be honest ;)

Before we get started, let’s talk about perseverance in the face of adversity. No matter what skate trick got away from you, what job interview didn’t call you back, what crush blocked your number…there is always hope. Even if it’s four years, and four broken boards later — maybe you too, one day, will be the recipient of a celebratory “oooohhhhh yeaaaaaahhh” from Alexis Lacroix. It is all a matter of patience and dedication.

FYI: Most remaining stuff in our webstore is on sale.

I know Vice articles about skateboarding tend to get a bad rap on the comments here, but this one is actually pretty good! Zach Harris on the “trend” of skateboarders not treating their bodies like garbage cans anymore. (Save everyone who spent the last three days in Montreal, I imagine.)

And on that note: “Will skateboarding’s notoriously rapid generational churn soon spur a backlash against sober, thoughtful life choices, and bring about a new era of ‘hammer’ tricks, illegitimate children and unpaid debt?” …probably?

Zered has an interview with Juxtapoz mag about his Paper Skaters project.

Village Psychic interrogates Nick Boserio about whether or not skating street on 60mm wheels is “cheating.” Try and read it in his voice.

Noted sweatpants engineer and our good friend Jimmy Gorecki has a nearly two-hour interview on The Nine Club.

Crazy Ass Paterson Skaters uploaded a 12-minute-long raw footy log.

It is wild how much the spot selection in even a skate heaven like Barcelona managed to change over the course of a decade. Tombo uploaded some old footage from a trip out there in 2005 with Puleo, a young Brandon Westgate, and others.

The Traffic team talks about riding a bus from Washington to New York with a pantless man who thought he was the Road Runner, and other stories from when they were filming for their last video.

New York resident Mark Suciu has a longform interview with North.

Here’s a new iPhone edit from Kyota.

Quote of the Week: “Speaking French is 10% pronunciation and 90% attitude.” — Young Lady Giving Impromptu French Lessons at Glory Challenge

So Random, This One

Photo by Bryce Kanights. Scan via Science Versus Life

“So, you’re smoking weed on the plane at…13-years-old.” This Steven Cales “Nine Club” interview is full of gems from late-80s and early-90s New York. If you want some footage accompaniments to the people/companies/places/era he talks about a lot, check these 88-92 Skate N.Y.C. videos that surfaced on YouTube back in 2011.

Our dear friends at Lottie’s Skateshop collaborated with Spitfire and released one of the funnest all-L.A. edits in recent memory. Features legends like Andrew Reynolds, Michael Gigliotti and Danny Brady.

Memory Screen has a nine-minute montage up to commemorate the bro Mark Gonzales’ 50th birthday, edited to the another early-00s Real rider’s song from maybe my favorite video part ever :)

#TRENDWATCH2018: Are trips to Marseille the new trips to Paris?

The new, and improved Love Park is finally open! And it’s so bad that the designer of the Love sculpture decided to depart to another plane of existence.

And on a related, nothing-to-do-with-skateboarding but everything-do-with-skateboarding note, Village Psychic interviewed Nils Norman about the study of defensive architecture via Dismal Garden.

Theories of Atlantis is at the helm of a new wheel company called Dial Tone MFG. They have a new edit up featuring teamriders Jahmal Williams, Alexis Sablone, others.

The Bronze Instagram story has documentation of perhaps the biggest development to happen to skateboarding in midtown Manhattan since incentive zoning.

With every New Yorker’s favorite L.A. spot reaching an unfortunate demise, Andrew Allen provides us with the story behind the day when he backside flipped into the main bank at L.A. High.

Max Hull put together an iPhone montage from a winter Barcelona trip.

Smalls uploaded Pulaski montage 12 of 500 from Stop Fakin’ 3 ;) ♥

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: By the looks of it, this might be the final installment of the Sports Desk until the fall, but gotta give it to J.R. Smith running to the liquor store in the final two seconds of an NBA Finals game.

Quote of the Week: “So, Die Antwoord is these white people who rap.” — E.J.