The Ghost of Andy Kessler

I need to acknowledge the influence and life's work of a dedicated skater named Andy Kessler.

Andy was a tough character who seemingly lived a life that was equally tough, but like so many "true New Yorkers" Andy pulled through and achieved things bordering on the transcendent. His advocacy on behalf of New York skateboarders was unrelenting, and we can thank him for making some of our favorite public skateparks a reality.

A young woman named Gianca, riding at the 108th Street skatepark circa 1998

I was never close to Andy, but he has had a big impact on the quality of my life. When I moved back to New York City in 1996 I found shelter from the intense world of my early teaching career by riding the trains up to 108th Street in Manhattan to ride the park that Andy helped create:

A fleeting glimpse of me riding the mini at 108th Street, also in 1998

Andy was simultaneously surly and generous in a way that's hard for people who haven't grown up in New York City to appreciate. But if you skated he was always welcoming, offering advice and support. I remember meeting him at his apartment to buy a couple of his Wounded Knee decks (a deck that I am still riding); he was warm and encouraging, and told me about his latest projects advocating for skateparks in Greenport, Long Island and Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Tragically, Andy died last month after suffering a severe allergic reaction to a wasp sting. His death has been reported by New York Magazine, Skateboarder, Thrasher, the New York Times, Newsday, and a host of other sources (1, 2, 3).

The stereo system at an Owl's head pool jam bears a memorial to Andy

Whenever I have lived in New York City, I have used skateparks to escape from the misery of the city's landscape. It's pretty clear to me that these places to escape would not have been there without Andy's work.

Andy's stenciled silhouette decorates Millenium Skatepark in Owl's Head Park

Thanks, Andy. I am sorry that you had to leave the session so early.

Owl's Head Pool Jam

I don't get to the skatepark in Bay Ridge enough. That's just a fact of my life. Why is another story.

So when I can get there, I really appreciate it. Yesterday I went down to ride my bike and enjoy the empty park on a Friday morning. At this hour the park is usually dominated by a bunch of older dudes with flexible work schedules or no job at all. It's a good time for an older guy to be in the park.

One of the guys that is often there is named Jeff. He skates, but he also is a workhorse who's often maintaining Owl's Head's sweet pool:


There's not really any maintenance provided by the Parks Department, so it is skaters like Jeff that keep the place in shape with a little bonding compound and fresh paint:


Jeff let me know that today there would be a large jam at the park and so I decided to dust off my board for the second time this year and see what skating rather riding the park would feel like.

This is what the jam looks like:


Lots of guys hanging around the pool, an impressive number of them in the late-thirties to late-fifties age range. A tent, a lot of banners, and a table full of old-school decks:


This is was a comfortable atmosphere for me to get back to skating again. Very little attitude, some encouragement, and a plain joy for riding. I did not spend much time in the pool, but others were ripping it up:


I mostly hung out in the smaller bowl, making my way up to a couple of fifty-fifty stalls and getting my carving back. Meanwhile, the vets were airing out, blasting grinds, and otherwise working the pool:


Pretty awesome. Makes me want to get back more often and get into better skating shape.

Paying for it...

A day after my big skate comeback and I am in pain!

Although I did not fall or twist anything weird or suffer any shock during my day back, my back is suffering. Turns out that pumping tranny works some muscles that just don't get worked in my everyday exercise routine.

I am not totally sure that this was completely caused by my skate return; I also carried a cart filled with cupcakes down a flight of stairs, and that might have also done it.

There's not a lot of dignity in this outcome, as I can barely bend over to put on my shoes and walk in this painfully stiff gait. But somehow I don't care. I will be back for more soon... perhaps just a little bit less at a time.

Bilingualism

Today I got out to the Millennium Skatepark in Bay Ridge's Owl's Head Park for the first time in awhile. In another first, I brought my skateboard.

At the skatepark there is this regular crew of bowl skaters, many of whom are older than I am, and I have been tempted to ask them to try their boards on many occasions.



So I got back on the board after maybe four years of not skating, and things felt good. Yeah, I was rusty, but I was able to do a little bit of carving around without killing myself. And as the day progressed, I started to feel that old skating groove coming back.

Because I had no ridden there in maybe a month, I was also itching to ride my bike there, so I switched back and forth as I got bored with one or the other. Is it possible to switch between skating and biking? So far it seems to be, although my biking is clearly a lot better than my skating at this point. Will I get to the point where I will want to focus on only one "language" on any given day? Maybe, but it is really liberating to have both things in the realm of the possible. I can't really tell you why I stopped skating. Maybe it's because I lived isolated from any kind of skatepark for so long.

An interesting wrinkle to the day was the presence of an army of young Hasidic kids on the perimeter of the skatepark.


Some of them were cool and talked to us as we skated the bowl...


We encouraged them to come in and give it a try, but they seemed to think that the space was "off limits" to them. When a bunch of them came in without boards or bikes and decided to start walking around on the obstacles (which is a no-no), they got kicked out, which probably only added to their sense of being left out.

Unfortunately things got a bit ugly when a large group on one side of the park started harassing this younger girl who was skating. One of the bowl skaters had been to Hebrew school and knew some of the obscene things they were saying, and apparently they also spit at her.


Once it was clear that this pre-pubescent Hasidic gang was up to no good, the skate and bike superheroes stepped in and confronted them, causing a spectacular scattering of little brats.

Ah, just another day at the skatepark.

Jonesing

So it was about a month ago that I decided to start skating again.

Ironically, I have not had my skateboard out yet.

I bought a pair of knee pads so I could get back into skating ramps and bowls. I even bought a backpack specifically for carrying my skateboard. And yet I haven't been out yet.

Owl's Head is my home park. I have been riding my 24" Tonic Fab Fall Guy for the past year. Recently I decided to bring my skateboard along.

And yet I have not had the time to do anything about this plan.

Teresa and I took a train out to Montauk to camp and rode our touring bikes all over the place. We ended up on the north fork in Greenport, where I saw this:


And this...


And also this...


Needless to say this was torture, and it was difficult being in bike shoes, a lycra jersey, and my goofy road bike helmet while almost no one was using this park.

Teresa and I get married out there in August and we will spend the week on Shelter Island. I will be back.

The Ramp

It all started in the backyard. After watching Back to the Future my brother and I had gotten a couple of skateboards. I got a Variflex, and Eric got the legit Valterra just like Marty McFly. We rode those boards around the neighborhood, mostly bombing the hill in front of our house.

And then we got the first real boards. Mine was an Alva Eddie Reategui and Eric's was a Santa Cruz Jeff Kendall. Shortly after we got these boards, we built the ramp:

Now let's get one thing straight: this was not a properly built ramp. It had a little half-inch piece of wood molding for coping, and was built by basically laying a piece of plywood on top of a bunch of pieces of wood sticky up from random places.

But it worked. Eric and I learned how to kickturn on this ramp, and that was part of the beginning.