Red Bull Origin NYC, the results: 6 finals at the 15‑year‑old closed Brooklyn Banks, and the real winner isn’t a skater

On September 19, 2026, Red Bull dropped a contest on a spot that New York had kept shut for 15 years: the Brooklyn Banks, under the Brooklyn Bridge. On the 13 stairs, Treveon Wade and Niko Sugimoto each took home $5,000. Jake Wooten was named MVP for the men, Sugimoto for the women. Six finals, $31,000 dished out, and a question we settle at the end: who really won that day.

Watch Bangers at the Banks — Red Bull Origin NYC (Red Bull Skateboarding)

Podiums: 6 finals, $5,000 for the big checks

Three events, each run for men and women. The 13 stairs paid the most: $5,000 for first, $2,500 for second, $1,000 for third. The 10 stairs and the subway car paid $2,000, $1,000 and $500. Here are the six winners, with their podiums.

• Treveon Wade13 stops · M

  1. Treveon Wade (Lufkin, Texas) · 2. Lucas Aquino · 3. Koston Eaton (Mesa, Arizona)

• Niko Sugimoto13 stops · W + MVP

  1. Niko Sugimoto · 2. Kylie Frank · 3. Shiloh Catori

• Jake WootenRamp · M + MVP

  1. Jake Wooten · 2. Jake Ilardi · 3. Demarcus James

• Daniela TerolRamp · W

  1. Daniela Terol · 2. Taylor Burnett · 3. Celina Meehan

• Antonio Durao10 stops · M

  1. Antonio Durao · 2. Jake Wooten · 3. Franky Spears

• Sofie Valle Mörk10 stops · W

  1. Sofie Valle Mörk · 2. Niko Sugimoto · 3. Celina Meehan

Two names keep coming up. Jake Wooten wins the rail section and takes 2nd in the 10-stair, which is how he earns the MVP title. Niko Sugimoto wins the 13-stair and takes 2nd in the 10-stair: same logic, same title. Another detail that matters: the women’s podium is very young. Sugimoto, Valle Mörk and Terol are 17, according to the event listing on The Boardr, which produced the contest.

Treveon Wade breaks his board on the 13-stair, and still wins

That’s the moment we keep coming back to. Treveon Wade, 25, comes from Lufkin, Texas. On the 13-stair rail, he lands a backside smith grind. The board snaps. He doesn’t bail out of the jam, though. He grabs one of the SHUT Sharks on hand, a board way bigger than his own, and boardslides the rail with it. That’s what the official Red Bull recap tells.

Picture it: twenty minutes of jam, fifteen skaters in line, and a guy carrying on with a board he’s never ridden. No run scored to the tenth, no judges hiding behind a screen. Just a crowd pressed against the rail, watching to see if he can hold it. The 13-stair was the “Go Big or Go Home” of the program. He took it literally.

On the women’s side, Niko Sugimoto goes down the 13 steps in a boardslide. Watching his victory lap, Red Bull is betting it was the biggest rail of his career. The MVP title follows. His comment afterward says it all: « It was my first time in New York, and my first time at the Brooklyn Banks, so everything was new to me. » First visit, two podiums, a $5,000 check.

The official contest footage

Red Bull Skateboarding dropped its first clips the next day. No full edit yet, but enough to see the day’s bangers at the Banks.

The second clip shows the partyline at the Banks: Ryan Decenzo, Jake Wooten and TJ linking tricks one after another, like a session with your homies.

1989, 1991, 1998: three mag covers, one spot

Why didn’t Red Bull just do this in a skatepark? Because the Banks are where New York street skating really started. From the mid-80s on, long before any city skatepark, these leaning bricks under the bridge were the only real curve in Manhattan. Landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg didn’t design them for that. He said so himself: that was never the intention.

The mags followed. In 1989, Jeremy Henderson landed the Thrasher cover with a wallride on the Banks. In 1991, Jamal Simmons got the TransWorld cover, shot by Spike Jonze. In 1998, it was Fred Gall’s kickflip wallride. In between, the first issue of 411 Video Magazine, in 1993, showed a contest right there on the spot. And in 2000, the spot entered wallride culture through video games, with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.

If you want the story told by the people who grew up on it, Thrasher dedicated a full episode of This Old Ledge to it.

15 years behind barriers: what New York did to the Banks

After 9/11 in 2001, the area gets locked down for a few days, then turns into a weekday parking lot. In 2004, the city starts construction and knocks down the small Banks. By 2010, they turn the whole space into storage for the bridge’s renovation. The big Banks get blocked off behind barriers. For an entire generation, the spot’s just a memory from old videos

Skaters didn’t give up. A 2016 petition gathered 21,718 signatures. In 2020, city services removed the bricks from the flat, and everyone thought the big Banks were next. A new petition surpassed 53,000 signatures, according to the historic compilation on Wikipedia.

The real winner of September 19 is called Steve Rodriguez

Treveon Wade took the biggest check. Jake Wooten and Niko Sugimoto grabbed the titles. But without one guy, none of them would have set foot on those bricks. Steve Rodriguez, skateboarder and organizer of the New York scene, has been fighting for the Banks since 2005. He’s the one who pushed the city to keep the big Banks for skate after the 2004 work.

He’s back on the scene twenty years later. In 2023, the 9‑step ramp was rebuilt thanks to him, The Skatepark Project, and Rosa Chang’s Gotham Park association. On June 5, 2025, he’s next to Mayor Eric Adams when the big Banks reopen after 15 years of closure. In 2026, the small Banks follow suit. And on September 19, Red Bull can drop a contest there.

That’s the answer. The real winner of this Red Bull Origin isn’t any of the six champs. It’s the spot itself, and those who refused to let it disappear: Rodriguez, Rosa Chang, and the 53,000 signatories. The contest just proved they were right. And the future isn’t written: the city pledged $50 million to rebuild the space, with a project slated for 2028. Today, when a 17‑year‑old like Sugimoto discovers the Banks for the first time, it’s on a ramp that skaters saved with signatures.

That back Smith grind, then the boardslide on a borrowed board—worth the $5,000 or you’d have just handed over the 13 steps to Lucas Aquino? Drop your take in the comments ↓

The Banks aren’t the only East Coast spot that’s been completely overhauled: read how Josh Kalis landed his first foot on Love Park in 1994. And for another contest where a Mesa Eaton hits the podium, the Tampa Pro 2026 is on the line. All our major skate contests are on nosk8.com.