NYC Courthouse Ledge #4: The Drop into the Bank

Residing above the main ledge is a good drop right into the bank. Great for doing tricks into the bank, but the hard part is not just that drop, but surviving the drop to the ground as well. Again, there have probably been a good amount of tricks done down the drop at the NYC Courthouse that haven't been given coverage. So here are the ones I could find and a few that I just can't forget about.

A straight nollie is a good way to start things off with the basics, but popping off the nose into that bank does not seem easy at all.  Then again, neither does the no-pop cannonball.

Stepping it up to some fliptricks, we start with the kickflip and its four species: done regular by Chris Peterson in the photo above (I'm assuming the make), done switch by Eli Reed way too nonchalantly, done nollie by Tyshawn Jones, and done fakie by Josh Clark.

Moving on to some crazier tricks, we have the pretty absurd 360 flip Benihana by Shane McGrane. Regardless if it's a tailgrab or a benihana, a 360 flip alone would be gnarly, so throwing a [one-footed] grab in there is just nuts.

Now my personal favorite trick down the NYC Courthouse drop would be Yoshi Tanenbaum's frontside half cab flip. Popping off of the front of your board at the edge of a big drop alone can be pretty scary, but spinning with your back to the drop basically the whole descent must've been frightening. But Yoshi's just got it like that.

And to close things out with quite a bang, here's a very noteworthy 360 shove it from Jereme Knibbs. Click here for the full size sequence.


Now I may just have missed a good portion of the tricks, but after a bit of research, these are really the only main tricks that have been done down this drop. Considering that there have been no heelflip tricks (to my knowledge) is already pretty indicative of the gnarliness of the spot. Not to mention so many other tricks that can still be done here from your now-standard 360 flips or hardflips or even something like a frontside flip. An iconic gem of the East Coast hasn't even had its training wheels taken off yet.

Next Week: Clipper Ledge

Next week is going to be a good one. We'll be taking a look at a bunch of the tricks that have gone down at the Clipper Ledge in San Francisco, California. This topic was primarily inspired by Jamie Thomas's latest addition to the history of tricks with his gnarly ender in Cold War. Just to be safe and not spoil anything further, I'll just say that while the trick itself may be used a bit too frequently these days, actually thinking about doing it down something as big as Clipper makes you realize just how gnarly that trick was. The fact that it was The Chief doing it too just adds to the quality of the history at the spot.

To keep some standards for this week, I'll only be highlighting the grinds/slides done down the ledge. That isn't to say there have been some crazy tricks done OVER the ledge too. Cody Mac's switch flip from Business as Usual (2:48), Jamie Tancowny's backside flip from Strange World (1:25) which just so happens to follow a sweet kickflip front board down the ledge, and one of the highest ollies probably ever done: Milton Martinez goes over the top and down the TWO sets at Clipper! Then there's Eli Reed and Richie Jackson getting creative and doing some footplants, Eli in his Real Street part (0:52) and Richie in this older Pig Wheels ad.
Now for some mention-worthy grind/slide tricks done down Clipper. There's James Hardy in Since Day One with his scary front 180 to switch 50-50 the hard way, Nyjah Huston's hammer of a hardflip back 5-0 from his Last Call part from last year (0:30), Greg Lutzka's really awesome frontside big spin noseslide from Forward Slash, Vincent Alvarez with a crazy switch backside bluntslide back to switch from Pretty Sweet, Ishod Wair with the stylish frontside version, and then Mark Appleyard with three beautiful tricks from Sorry: switch front tail (1:28), kickflip back 5-0 (4:35), and following that with the gnarly nollie flip back 50.

I hope I'm not missing any super gnarly tricks done at Clipper, but these ones mentioned here and the ones coming this week are the ones that stick out most.

Update 6/8/15: Even though Transworld pretty much fully documented the ABD Archives at Clipper, and Thrasher helped unleash a myriad of NBDs on the spot through The Ripper at Clipper to forever cement this spot as one of the greatest in skateboarding history (RIP Clipper), I don't think Daniel Dubois' frontside 360 from his 19th Ave part was fully appreciated, or Sam Baker's crazy ledge combo on the gnarly hubba while under construction. And I almost forgot Alex Conn's gnarly nollie boardslide to fakie!