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.

Video of the Week: Dee Ostrander Baker Part

First off, Aidan Campbell's new part that came out today was pretty awesome. Ever since his sml wheels intro, I was hyped on him and wanted to see more. His new part for Etnies (between AB&A and David Reyes' new part and all the other commercial features Etnies, Etnies could've easily worked towards a full length team video!) was exactly what was needed to bring Aidan to the spotlight. His style and smile make everything he does look super fun and easy, not to mention the really great editing we've come to expect from these Etnies videos. His trick selection is great and mixes in some pretty gnarly spots with some classy tricks. And the knee bend as he holds onto the boardslide at the end is priceless.

But even with that, I simply cannot look past Dee Ostrander's new part that he dropped for Baker. The Baker vibes always make you feel like you're with the homies, so when Dee starts casually ripping everything up for 6 full minutes, the destruction is too good for words. Dee skates some huge, gnarly spots, from rails to gaps to street wide grass gaps from huge ditches (aka the insane ender). So the skating itself is enough to amaze anyone and get skaters psyched to go shred the streets. The taildrop boardslide at 3:16 hyped me up so much! But the fact that everything is done with an apathetic ease left me in awe, which makes sense since Dee just so happened to drop a 6 minute part full of bangers completely out of the blue. Anyway, this part is nuts and deserves plenty of re-watches.

Yoshi Tanenbaum has been killing it lately and doesn't seem to be slowing down after his sick Mag Minute came out.
Though it will be taken down soon, Ben Hatchell's part from Cold War was released on Thrasher showing that anything he puts out is all-terrain gold. Seriously though, the quality of the gnarly footage in Cold War is ridiculous. It might be on the shorter side but I'll take nonstop thrashing footage over an over-edited piece any day.
After Dan Murphy's shared part with Dave Bachinsky in Natural Selection came out not too long ago, he's now releasing more solid footage as a commercial for his truck sponsor, Theeve.
Almost Skateboards is one of my favorite companies because their team is nothing short of legendary and every single one of those dudes skates super creatively (to say the least) and has a blast while doing it. So this new feature from a good group of guys on the team was awesome, not to mention basically a full new part from Youness, yet another footage machine.
The LRG Europe squad is darn talented, like extremely talented, at skateboarding and it shows in their sweet tour video through Cyprus.
Nice NYC vibes throughout this video, Off The Braxx, with a crazy ender part from Dylan Witkin, who somehow managed to find loads of big handrails in the city.
There have to be hundreds if not thousands of dudes that are under the skateboarding industry's radar, but Chris Luhring and Julian Klein both came out with tight parts this week for Creation/Satori and Atlas Skateboarding respectively that should definitely help with that. Haven't heard of either of them before but their names will stick out after seeing their skating here. 

Video of the Week: Yoshi Tanenbaum

Yoshi Tanenbaum's skill is surreal. The fact that the flick on his laser was perfect nearly every single try and he stuck all but maybe two attempts is incomprehensible. Making something so gnarly look easy enough to just run up and go for it like Yoshi did is beyond impressive, and then landing it twice in a row (what was wrong with the first one?) takes the cake for me.

For time constraints I will just list some other sweet videos from this past week:
Chaz Ortiz and his insanely consistent and buttery backside flips at the Berrics
The Expedition flow bros are extremely skilled
Always enjoy some new Josh Anderson footage, in this case via his Mag Minute
The ever-beautiful varial heelflips and variations from Willow in this Etnies feature
Moose's first pro truck via Thunder Trucks
Sweet new part from Aussie Jack Fardell
Always love some raw VX footage from one of my favorites, Walker Ryan
Connor Champion skating very poppy with this Quartersnacks remixed part
Loving the New Balance team lately, especially with edits like The Second Narrows
Waters and Army welcomes Marek Zaprazny with this awesome video part (fakie nosegrind switch tre!)
Introduction to Zero's Cold War video (so pumped to see it this week!!)