Groeth Is Coming

Pyramid Ledges extension challenge summer 2k19.

Sign + share the petition to keep synthetic turf off the Tompkins flat.

The Stingwater video is on the way. Pretty excited because Daniel has a way of capturing Antonio’s magic unlike anyone else.

Obvs no shade to anyone else out there pointing lenses at Antonio intended! “Vue” by Stephen Spilker is a rad L.A. montage that also has a good bit of clips from 2018’s GRoER of the Year. Shout out to everyone out there creating plain, old fashioned montages. Should probably start working on a QS one right about now…

Gang Corp put out a sick five-minute summer edit. (The one line into the parking garage got me thinking about if anyone would ever do an all-parking garage montage, kinda how there was the all-subway one from Spirit Quest. So many insane spots in those.)

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$17 For a Bagel

An old gem from Charles Rivard, PhD.

If you have not signed the petition to keep synthetic turf off of the Tompkins Square Parks court, but have the (*begin Stephen A. Smith voice*) AUDACITY to log onto QS — we are going to come to your house, break your refrigerator, and then fucking bring it to Tompkins.

It’s one of those rare weeks when the links gravitate towards the written word and not videos. Good time to load up Instapaper if you have a flight or long bus-ride ;)

No idea how this is floating under the radar… Muckmouth basically has an oral history of New Deal skateboards, in which they caught up with all (?) of the original riders as a specified addendum to the “where are they now” things that they were doing a few years back.

The New York Times has a story about the awful situation with the security guard and the GX crew at Black Rock, and how it has opened the conversation about about how we all interact with security. (Everyone just leave. Come back or don’t, but just leave.)

“The Dogtown phenomenon, billed in the doc as ‘the birth of the now,’ has since become a cottage industry.” This is a cool longform profile of Craig Stecyk that traces back on a lot of the “ethos” that skateboarding adopted from California surfers and quickly found itself commodified.

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Sanguine Paradise

Please sign the petition to show your support for keeping the asphalt at the Tompkins Square Park courts. This space is as sacred to skateboarding and the East Village as the Rucker or the West 4th Street courts are to basketball. It would be a massive loss to the youth and cultural fabric of the neighborhood if they were covered with synthetic turf. We are a few hundred shy of 25,000 (!!!) signatures, so please please please share the petition with your friends, and on your respective social channels.

After many years of captivity, the Zipper Ledge is finally free and dressed with a fresh, yellow paintjob, as first reported by @mini_spots. (Don’t ask for pin! That’s like asking where the Empire State Building is!) If only the park starts opening the gate at Yellow Rail, then the entire Morningside little kid skate scene circa 2003 will be in full revival.

Jesse Alba is the latest guest on The Bunt, and really happy that he no longer lives at 51 Eldert Street.

…aanndd Max Palmer is half the man he used to be in Jesse’s new #longform iPhone edit.

One of the hardest things about interviewing skateboarders is not asking the same ten things that the last few interviews they did asked. It’s special and rare when you get someone for their first one. Caleb Barnett did his first ever interview with the Slam City Skates blog.

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Spoilers

Thanks to everyone that picked up something from the webstore last week ♥ We caught up on shipping all of last week’s orders by Friday, so if you are worried something went awry, feel free to hit us up. Still some stuff left on there, and it’s supposed to almost hit 90 today, so perhaps you could use a new pair of shorts? ;)

DC, Skate Jawn and Village Psychic brought two pieces of plywood to Borough Hall, made a hip at the bottoms of the steps, and threw a skate jam last weekend. Has no one ollied the set yet?

Filed Under “It Would Be Nice If This Was 3-4x As Long” — Tom Knox and Jordan Trahan skate around London together, and Johnny put together an Insta-length compilation of Alex Olson loosies from the past several years.

Here’s an iPhone vid of Chris Milic, Nick Michel, and some other Frogs in S.F.

“But I look at it this way. If it makes us happy, it has value. If we love it, it is as real as that love. And with some love and happiness in our hearts, we might just solve climate change and cure cancer too.” Jenkem has a nice feature with Mackenzie Eisenhower that covers sixteen pieces of advice that he’d give after sixteen years of writing about skateboarding for a living. (#17: one of the greatest hacks to writing about skateboarding is not writing about skateboarding.)

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Lurker Lou’s ‘Purple Shoe Lou’ Part

A running topic of conversation during Lou’s premiere / art show on Saturday was the unavoidable rant he was gonna go on when some company steals his idea of premiering a skate video on a box truck covered in L.E.D. screens. It’s one of those brilliant “how has nobody thought of this?” ideas that anyone would be jealous of, and all the more viable in an age when holding a skate premiere in New York is becoming an increasing pain in the ass. He already seems at peace with the inevitable though ;)

Lou swore off skateparks two-plus years ago, and has wisely observed that our days on this earth are far too numbered to waste away at Blue Park. Recent years have found him skating hellish-looking bank spots that my colleagues and I have zero interest in knowing the location of, that just over board-width slab of cement that runs down the entrance of Brower Park, and Chauncey Ledges — admittedly his only concession to the topsoil of New York skate spots — in an otherwise stubborn crusade to avoid any of the familiar trappings of 2k19 spot selection.

Village Psychic has the web premiere. Bonus Portugal section at the end, sponsored by Uber Eats.

With so much of the Vicious Cycle alumni still putting out solid parts, it begs the question: when is the new Brian Brown part dropping?