Zoo York | Quartersnacks

The Events That Defined New York City Skateboarding in 2012: 10-6 + 2013 Predictions

Features & Interviews December 28th, 2012 · 8:30 am · 13

lou ruining skateboarding

70% chance of snow for the last weekend of 2012. New Year’s Eve plans? Nets head coach suggestions? Indoor skate spot recommendations? Highest bidder for an unauthorized House of Vans key duplicate? Who’s excited for the new season of Girls? Previously: #s 25-21, 20-16, 15-11. Expect 5-1 on New Year’s Eve.

10. Lurker Lou Ruins Skateboarding

Skateboarders hate everything. It becomes more evident by the day, as the anonymity provided by Hella Clips comments supplants the Slap forum as the skateboard internet’s epicenter of negativity. But we won’t stand for that negativity in our reality shows! This past spring, Lurker Lou — who, looking at it as objectively as possible, didn’t “hate” *that* bad — spewed his bearded criticisms on a bunch of youngsters looking to “make it” via the “One in a Million” reality show fiasco. He hurt feelings, crushed dreams, snapped boards and ruined any fun there was to be had in riding a skateboard for the remainder of human existence, which unfortunately, did not end on December 21st. (No existence is better than existence on an earth with Lou.)

What a jerk!

Summer Jam

Daily News June 4th, 2012 · 9:05 am · 10

The new Studio Skateboards video, Mood Lighting, will make you want to take that six-hour drive up to Montreal this summer.

“That summer before, people met up at Supreme, people still sessioned the banks, and the World Trade Center was benches and a long manual pad. It was Diesel Jeans, Vita Shoes, Aesthetics Apparel and Seaport with metal edges.” Some thoughts on the definition of “lurker,” why the most out-of-the-way spot in New York is the most popular, etc. Photos by Joe Cups, words by Ted Barrow.

This kid seems pretty bummed about Zoo York cutting its skate team, even though he doesn’t know that Zered’s name is pronounced exactly how it’s spelled. Dude’s got a notepad and a Brita.

Since the weather isn’t ideal for skating in sweatpants, what breezier alternative will fashionable skaters turn to? Camo shorts? Sweat shorts? (Danny Supa owns the copyright to skating in basketball shorts.) Generic cut-off Dickies? In this FTC trip video to Vieques (small island off the coast of Puerto Rico), Brad Johnson makes the case for board shorts. Screw Montreal, we out to Vieques…

Scratched lenses and M.O.P. are both chill.

What’s the most amount of trouble you’ve gone through to skate an awful spot? This seems to really go the extra mile in skating a ledge described by a wise man as grinding “like a soggy hot dog bun.”

British Esquire says it’s time to grow up and hang up that skateboard, guys! Naturally, that was stumbled on while Googling for those pictures of Rihanna with her ass out. Between the camo, tats, and bleached hair, she’s 3-for-5 on summer T.F. trends.

DeShawn Stevenson charges $4.50 to withdraw money from the ATM in his kitchen.

As a footnote to the “Zoo York Institute of Design” post from last week, here’s the Zoo York industry section from 411 #6.

Quote of the Week: “The future is dark out here man. The future we need is the one from Atlanta.” — Francesco Pini, Chief Officer of QS International’s Italian and Scandinavian Branches regarding Italy’s Debt Crisis

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Speaking of Future, he was supposed to perform in New York tonight. Then he decided to cancel his tour.

The Zoo York Institute of Design

Time Capsule May 31st, 2012 · 10:11 am · 15

In the introduction to his interview with Zered Bassett, Chris Nieratko details how Zoo York was once a source of pride for east coast skaters. A few buyouts and a decade later, nobody sets up a Zoo board with a geographic bias in mind anymore. Even if the company completely phases out of skating, people will forever nerd out over their first three videos (Mixtape, at this point, is just as much of a hip-hop classic a la Wild Style or Style Wars as a classic skate video), and chances are, most who began skating after Zoo ceased being any sort of an east coast status symbol have seen those videos and cried about how all the spots are gone.

You can’t type “zoo york ads” into a Vimeo search bar and get any results, so a lot of younger kids won’t see the old Zoo ads. (They probably won’t see the new ones either…do kids still look at magazines?) Those ads are just as full of classic nineties east coast iconography as the original videos.

The Zoo ads throughout the nineties were HIP-HOP at a time when that meant more than leaving comments about how Lil’ Wayne sucks on every pre-2000 rap video’s YouTube page. Other companies even jocked their whole hip-hop scrapbook vibe when it was appropriate: Transworld styled article layouts for east coast skaters with Zoo’s look (see here), west coast companies would run Zoo-esque ads for their east coast riders (see here and here), and start-up east coast brands like Illuminati, Metropolitan, and Capital all had a bit of Zoo DNA in their ads. It’s unfortunate that now, even when paired with a sick photo, Zoo ads look pretty generic.

Thanks to the internet’s leading scanner-based skate sites, we gathered a handful of ads from 1994-2000 into one place. The scans are stolen from The Chrome Ball Incident, Police Informer, and Skate.ly.

Links From the BBQ

Daily News May 29th, 2012 · 9:00 am · 2

Scott Johnston at the building across from the New York Stock Exchange. Sometime in the nineties.

Monday links on a Tuesday…

The rumor mill about Zoo York phasing out of skateboarding has been building for quite some time, but it’s finally official. Zered Bassett explains what happened, and why everyone except pretty much Brandon Westgate is now off the team. (Black Dave, Kevin Tierney, and the AMs are all still on.)

The team at Live Skateboard Media remixed Lucas Puig’s Transworld pro spotlight part (the part that brought back the noseslide) by throwing in rap music, Biggie interviews, those ever-so-popular VHS glitch effects, etc. Better than the original, though not the French Montana x French Mariano part we all envisioned.

On Memorial Day, the Green Diamond put together a tribute clip to Slappy Cove.

Random Flip Cam footage from the Flipmode Squad riding around Queens and occasionally skateboarding.

Some kids take the PATH train into the city, skate 75% of the spots between 110th and 140th, edit it to ASAP Rocky, and upload it to YouTube.

You know those waxed concrete triangular banks that were across the street from the Brooklyn Banks at the Verizon Building? Well, they tore them all out, except for the one at the end.

Rick Ross publicly stated that he had $10,000 for anyone who ran across the court during a Heat Finals game (sorry Boston fans, but you guys are just as insane as the overly optimistic Knicks fans from four weeks ago if you think you have a shot) wearing nothing but a MMG shirt. Some dude did it during a second round playoff game, got arrested, charged, held on $6,500 bond, and didn’t even get his money, presumably because he didn’t read the part about it needing to be a Finals game.

Quote of the Week:

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Get some work done this week. Have a good one.

Essential Viewing

Time Capsule February 15th, 2012 · 2:22 pm · 3

Must Watch: R.B. Umali “Shoot All Skaters” — Part 2. (Part 1 here.)

Tackles various topics: Stussy Asia tour (back when Stussy had AVE, Huf, Scott Johnston, Danny Montoya, etc. all on one team), never deleting Gino footage, the Javitz double set, Kalis v.s. Pyramid Ledges, Kalis v.s. the Banks wall, Zered v.s. the Nassau rail, Zered v.s. Grace Ledge.

Shout out to Fred Gall and Josh Kalis for wearing camo pants when skating Pyramid Ledges. Shout out to to the guy who edited this for using Horace Silver as the backdrop of the last section.