New York City: Back to the Banks and Red Bull Manny Mania 2009

Posted on Monday, June 8, 2009 by Rob

Photos and Captions by Rob Meronek

Red Bull Manny Mania

I got to see a quick couple hours of some practice at the Manny Mania before I had to get on a plane to go home. That's Stevie Williams under the Manhattan Bridge where it all went down

I guess Stefan Janoski didn't make the Finals, but he sure won practice. That's a switch heel manual

Pang was referring to this kid as Baby Biebel all day. I guess that's his homie

Rodrigo Peterson - 360 flip manual

Ending up in 4th, I think this is the first time Joey Brezinski didn't go home with a bedazzled Red Bull cup trophy

Chico Brenes with a perfect looking kickflip manual

Hopefully Mikemo Capaldi is getting more comfortable skating in public now after getting 2nd this weekend at Manny Mania

Stevie Williams - 360 flip to something on two wheels

This girl has a Benny Fairfax autograph on her leg. Maybe it's Benny's girlfriend? The filmer lurker is Paul G from Fuel TV

Wish I had time to watch more of Forrest Kirby

Billy Rohan's balancing act was the last thing I had time to snap before heading to the airport

Ain't the Devil Happy

By the time I got to the Bobby Worrest Shoe Release Party on Saturday night, it was too packed and I couldn't get in. Oh well, just another denied party. I was fortunate enough to run into Bobby the night before at some bar called Sweet Paradise

Sweet Paradise seems to be the kind of bar I want to be a local in. People here aren't scared to get down to 80's and 90's tunes that make drunk people more friendly

Inside the Sweet Paradise, I had a random encounter with NYC local, Dr. Z

Then I found Tomas, our tour guide from the Cuba trip a few weeks ago, along with Jenna, who was also in Cuba with us. Wow, New York City is the smallest big city in the world

The bathroom at Sweet Paradise is far from a sweet paradise. Good thing you can't smell on the internet

This is my friend Tommy's house in Brooklyn. He lives in a warehouse that's not zoned for residential. He has turned it into a pretty lived in looking place

Meanwhile, back at Manny Mania, Mikemo is getting to know Tampa. That's Frosty, Ashely Harrison, and DMFP

On the way out, Muska was getting swarmed by kids

NJ, DVS, Scotty Moore, and Skatepark of Tampa. We had to go to a bar down the street after not being able to get into Bobby's party. Apparently, things got shut down. Imagine that

Jenny Craig needs to write Officer Doofy a citation

On the flight home, I could see a full, bright moon above with a blanket of clouds below. Goodbye NYC, I'll see you soon

Back to the Banks 2009

Chris Blake is from Orlando and skated Tampa Am for the first time this past December. We will be seeing more of him for sure. This switch frontside bluntslide down the 10 stair got him two grand and 1st place on the rail

Stefan Janoski's shoe is one of my favorite of all time. That's a switch flip manual

Josh Friedberg is helping us film a pilot for a SPoTlight Productions show about all these crazy skateboard shindigs we organize around the world. Wish us luck. It's our second attempt at this. Schaefer and I had the pleasure of flying First Class together with unlimited laughs and free booze. See you back in Tampa

Behind that ocean of people I didn't want to swim through is the bump to spine part of Back to the Banks. This flat bar is on the side where 80 million kids are learning to crooked grind

The sea of people appears to be parted like the fairy tales in that one book

Jeff Pang with with an NYC classic. Pizza. And you know where there's pizza there's...

...there's Ortiz! Please do not feed the photographers. They have a job to do and need to be focused

Here we have another guy no stranger to a pizza. Andrew Cannon is a Muska fan. That bionic arm thing is for a dislocated elbow

Andrew Cannon still rips even with the bionic arm stabilizer. I spy Chris Ortiz not caring. Maybe the pizza is still digesting

This bank to ledge is super hard to skate and doesn't have a clear, straight run up for it. Not a ton of tricks go down. Javier Nunez was ripping, but it looks like Chris Ortiz is more interested in something else

David Loy sent this photo of Ortiz and Andrew Cannon last week at Damn Am. That's David Loy lipsliding and Chris Ortiz. Maybe he has a dead battery again?

Some unknown dude like this is definitely not going to get the attention of photographer to the skateboard stars, Chris Ortiz

Who dat? Noseslide across the top. I guess if I had a seat as comfortable as Chris Ortiz, I'd probably be chilling, too

Andrew Cannon and Chris Ortiz just had dinner together. Ortiz still doesn't care

David Gonzales' kickflip 50-50 was not enough to get the attention of that one photographer

Now I'm getting beamed. I think he knows I'm talking about him. That's Billy Rohan on a frontside 180 nosegrind. The traffic skating this thing was insane

This 5Boro dude had nice backside tailslides

Benny Fairfax moved way up on the list of my favorite skaters after watching the Battle at the Berrics. It was nice seeing him kill it at the Banks. That's a back lip across the top

I spy Caswell Berry

I've seen more and more of girls wearing these bad diaper butt pants. Maybe Cosmo said it's the new new or New York girls are on the forefront of fashion? You girls need to stop that right now

Luis Tolentino - frontside 180 fakie 5-0

I missed Willy Akers' frontside noseblunt slide on the top because I was staring into space like Chris Ortiz, but I got this tailslide frontside 180 out

Ishod Wair got in Tampa Am 2008 with video footage and had no sponsors. Before he sent the footage, I got a skateboard resume. I wasn't expecting such ripping footage. Anyway, Ishod continues to kill it and did so at the Banks this weekend. In addition to this frontside flip, he did hardflip and switch heel over it

Chris Blake warmed up with a frontside 180 over the rail

I guess Cody Davis wasn't feeling it after this ollie

This was the game show host in charge of hyping up the loot. I spy Josh Stewart

Clown in the modern day circus known as television, Casey and the Captain from the Captain and Casey Show on Fuel TV

This kid ate mushrooms and jumped the rail naked. Nah, nothing that crazy, but he did do this bennihanna over it. The crowd loved it

Just because you're pro doesn't mean you can't do the am shuffle. Andrew Pott starts out front board here and finishes up back board

We just saw Zack Hickoff at Damn Am last weekend. Now he's at the Banks doing feeble grind, back 50-50, and this crooked grind on the 10 stair

It looked like Timmy was winning the rail jam with this kickflip frontside nosegrind until Chris Blake blew it out with that switch front bluntslide. This KFFSNG was perfect, though

Ishod Wair was checking off a list of bangers over the rail, but this snapped board backside flip the hard way ended that

Andrew Pott threw a good looking heelflip over that thing

Dylan Perry gave a few close tries on this frontside flip, but then he was over it. Take a poop

Back over at the bank to ledge, Dan Pensyl was coming so close to this insane frontside nosegrind across the top, but piled hard and time was up. Take a poop

Imagine how dangerous to your nutsack and gooch a switch frontside bluntslide is on a 10 stair rail, especially on one with stairs only on one side. Chris Blake took some serious slams before finally making it clean

Who Dat is the last dude on the rail trying a trick and it's a double kickflip. Not sure if he ended up making it or not. I believe this one might need a pooper

I spy a snowman from Tampa. Frosty makes it up to NYC every year. You should, too

Colin Provost won the overall Back to the Banks event. The one trick I saw him do was a perfect frontside 360 over the 10 stair rail. I pulled a Chris Ortiz on that one. Sorry about that. I spy Lorena Lima

After the Banks Contest, I spent some time wandering around Soho. This is the Housing Works used bookstore and coffee shop. It's run by volunteers and all the books are donated with proceeds going to AIDS research. It's a pretty amazing chill spot

It's been a long weekend of long plane trips and a long Monday to follow it up. Check back tomorrow for photos from Red Bull Manny Mania that went down the day after Back to the Banks. While I was flying out of Las Vegas to get here, I witnessed this amazing view of the Las Vegas Strip

One more wide view of the Las Vegas Strip. Manny Mania and party photos coming up later...thanks for reading my banter and looking at my sketchy photos

New York City: Back to the Banks and Red Bull Manny Mania 2009

Posted on Monday, June 8, 2009 by Rob

Red Bull Manny Mania

Back to the Banks 2009

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