Today, the ramps are part of the daring street furniture, from the Chelsea Pier sull’Hudson and 23rd at the time of the bridges between Manhattan and Brooklyn. There is even a public park, the Skate Park, Riverside on the Upper West Side, the first dedicated to skate. He was due to Andy Kessler, the community of skaters celebrated Saturday with rallies and exhibitions in the city, before the funeral on Sunday in New Jersey. Kessler had died the week before for an allergic reaction to a wasp sting.
The table from the road, born of surfers in California, has made millions of followers worldwide, and before that elsewhere in New York. Last Saturday generations of followers have gathered to honor the memory of the ‘king’ or ‘godfather’, as they called friends. Forty-eight years, Kessler was one of the pioneers of the skating world, among the first to grasp its appeal ‘west coast’ and translate it into the fabric York. It was the’70s and megalopolises bankrupt districts offered degraded, disused factories and parks Malten. Born in Athens, an orphan adopted by an American family, there Kessler begins his journey, now in dramatic balance between drugs, alcohol and virtuous developments.
Always on the edge, always looking for new steps of difficulty. But the first real obstacle, the harder, the more than a leader. Around 25 years, knows to stop with the drinking and the ’stuff’ and concentrates on skating. Not only continues to practice alternative to surfing in the sea off Long Island, but institutionalises. It deals with the city parks department and to convince the establishment to create an official meeting place for skaters in a park on 108esima and Riverside Drive. Draw him pathways, ramps. Constructs his myth scar on scar. Among the fans is an icon, and Saturday night hundreds gathered in Brooklyn, on the esplanade in front all’East River, in Greenpoint, a tribute to the Autumn Bowl, a bowl of autumn, inside an old brick factory. There was even those who knew him personally: “He raised the flag higher and more strongly than anyone, ‘he told the New York Times Tony Alva, the epitome of skating on the coast, arrived from Santa Monica (California ): “embodied the spirit of New York, and now it is here that makes skating with me.”
With the soundtrack of the songs of the Who and the Beastie Boys, dozens of skaters have crossed on the walls of ciotolone from 230 square meters of area, more than two depths: an exhibition-tribute to the achievements of Andy: its “go vertical ‘revolutionary thirty years ago and now normal practice, but also its commitment to fostering places for the table. He was raised by finding that the tracks in extreme places, like the “Death Bowl”, an abandoned swimming pool in the Bronx, or the ‘Suicide Hill’, a steep descent sull’Hudson.
Graffiti and skating went hand in hand in the pre-Rudy Giuliani, and in fact, Andy became a member of ‘Artists of dell’Anima Park Zoo; rather, it “was the president,’ he recalled Zephir, one of the group. In 2005, when he had his most serious incident, the money to rebuild the knees and elbows were collected from friends and fans because he did not have health insurance. In addition to conversion to ‘architect’ of the tracks in the park, which became his work in America and abroad, Kessler was able to transform his direct experience in doped by example not to follow, and many friends will remember. “He saved my life,” said Harry Jumonty, 41 years, NY, telling that Kessler had led to Montauk last week to keep away from drugs. There, very tip of Long Island, Kessler went to surf and brought his friends at risk. “Maybe I could have saved his life, the cries Jumonty hours. But the evil of Montauk wasp had already decided his fate.
