Preserving a Skateboarding Park and Its Creator's Memory Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times Noel Korman, right, and other skaters have helped to renovate Riverside Skate Park, at Riverside Drive near 108th Street. In many parts of Riverside Park, people can find the past evoked - magisterially in the columns and dome of Grant's Tomb or touchingly in the tiny memorial to the Amiable Child. Ian Clarke sees it in the sky-blue ramps and half-pipes of Riverside Skate Park, which was designed by the New York skateboarding pioneer Andy Kessler. Monte Isom/Sportschrome, via Getty Images Andy Kessler, shown in 2007, designed the park; he died in 2009. "This is the Big Boy," Mr. Clarke said, pointing to a 10-foot-tall half-pipe - imagine a U-shaped valley upon which a skater can propel himself back and forth, gaining momentum and height - that was the centerpiece of the park when it opened. It's kind of like the Coney Island Cyclone: the older it gets, the more special it becomes. "This place is part of New York skating history," he added. It was the first solid public skate park in the city. Riverside Skate Park was built in the 1990s as a labor of love by Mr. Kessler, who died in 2009 from an allergic reaction to a wasp sting. He was 48. The park, near West 108th Street, had fallen into some disrepair over the years, to the chagrin of Mr. Clarke and many of Mr. Kessler's ring of skating buddies. So in recent months, they have come together on weekends to fix up some neglected parts of the ramps and other equipment. Some of the half-pipe's steel plates that form its skating surface had popped loose over the years, and Mr. Clarke and others helped fasten them down smoothly. Mr. Clarke, 51, a computer consultant who lives in Harlem, said he had donated more than $500 toward the effort to fix the park with the hope that it could be renamed after Mr. Kessler, who grew up nearby, on West 71st Street. Mr. Kessler helped form a crew called the Soul Artists of Zoo York, which introduced the skate scene to New York and helped define urban skating worldwide by building ramps out of found materials in unauthorized spaces. Mr. Kessler's friends agreed to keep the equipment mostly as is, not only to honor him but also because it has held up over the years, even as skating styles have changed. Mr. Clarke said it spoke to Mr. Kessler's spirit that he designed a park that could accommodate all levels of skating. "You get vertical skaters, longboarders and street skaters here," he said. Andy designed equipment for beginners through expert skaters, so everyone would belong. John Herrold, the administrator of Riverside Park and president of the Riverside Park Conservancy, which helps operate the park, hailed Mr. Clarke's efforts and called Mr. Kessler "an inspiring figure whose many contributions should be remembered." Regarding a possible renaming of the park, he wrote in an e-mail, "Just how that is done has yet to be decided, but we are aware of the continued interest that many have in possibly naming Skate Park in Andy's memory." Growing up in Britain, Mr. Clarke and his friends became obsessed with skateboarding in the 1970s by reading magazines that glorified California skate culture. He began skating in parks that sprang up in London, and after moving to New York had his interest rekindled by parks, including the one Mr. Kessler built. Mr. Clarke said the 10-foot half-pipe was the closest thing New York has to the vertical equipment one sees in the "extreme skateboarding" competitions that have become popular worldwide. The skate park's office and storage area is still a metal shipping container, as it was when Mr. Kessler was the park's attendant - a role now filled by Dewayne Williams, 53. Jaime Affoumado, 48, who was among those who attended a recent informal gathering of Mr. Kessler's friends, said he remembered the day he met Mr. Kessler - Dec. 23, 1977 - at a ramp Mr. Kessler helped build near the 96th Street exit of the West Side Highway. Also present was Irene Ching, 52, who met Mr. Kessler in the late 1970s. She recalled skaters "piling into someone's car to drive hours to backyard ramps outside the city" because it was always hard to find a place to skate in New York and the "years of petitioning" it took Mr. Kessler to persuade the city to let him build the Riverside Skate Park. "This was a very big deal when it opened," said Ms. Ching, a graphic artist who lives downtown. We have to preserve this because it's important for the younger generation to know what Andy left behind.