Andy Kessler

Andrew Kessler (June 11, 1961 – August 10, 2009) was a Greek-born American skateboarder, skatepark builder, and prominent member of a loose-knit collective of skateboarders and graffiti artists called the Soul Artists of Zoo York. Kessler is featured in the documentary Deathbowl to Downtown.

Early life Andy and his twin sister were born in Athens, Greece, adopted by an American family and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York. Built with the help of teenagers from Harlem and the Upper West Side, Riverside Skatepark became the city's first municipal park facility designed and constructed solely for skateboarders and rollerbladers.

In June 2019, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation broke ground on a concrete remodel of the Riverside Skatepark. In 2019 after the skatepark groundbreaking, local skaters, volunteers, and friends of Kessler petitioned the local elected officials and Community Board 7 to rename the skatepark after Kessler. Owl's Head Skate park Opened in 2001 and designed by Kessler, Millennium Skate Park in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was the first concrete skatepark built in Brooklyn.

Other skate parks Kessler also headed up the design and construction of skateparks in New York's boroughs outside Manhattan; in Greenport, Long Island; California and other states and in the Caribbean Islands.