Kessler Park

At 304 acres, Kessler Park is a the prominent park in the historic Northeast area of Kansas City. The park was opened in 1895 and has several key attractions that date back to the beginning of the KC's world class parks and boulevards system. The architect of that renown "City Beautiful" movement was none other than George Kessler, although the park was named for him many years after opening.The top attraction is Cliff Drive, although it is no longer accessible by vehicle. Due to trash dumping and late night crime, the beautiful drive with cliffs, waterfalls and lush greenery can only be accessed by foot or bike. The frisbee golf course looked pretty neglected on my drive thru also. The key components that are very well maintained is The Concourse; a subset park located in Kessler. The Colonnade is a century old stone pavilion and outlook with ornate and classic design features; an iconic KC landmark. Across the street is a large majestic fountain that allows fun and frolic for children and a large well maintained playground with large hillside slides. A park that all metro residents owe it to themselves to visit, although it has seen better days.

Walking and biking trails, playground, 4 basketball (soccer is usually being played too) courts, water fountain to play in, 2 huuuuge slides, picnic tables. It's really well kept and I've always felt safe. One of the most accessible and inclusive playgrounds. Those in a wheelchair or otherwise disabled can be found playing side by side with others. This part of Kansas City has a lot of history, for KC that is. I mean we're just babies compared with well the rest of the world. You get a chance though to see what the vision was for Kansas City when it was just getting it's start, what the founders hoped it would be. Walk through the impressive colonnades that are over a hundred years old. Everything about the park welcomes the community, something for everyone. I think they would be happy with what it has become as it stays true to enticing us to the outdoors.

Always clean, energetic, beautiful and uplifting. This is a site for visitors to come and see another know monumental part of Kansas City. I love the diversity this area brings and wouldn't change it for anything.

I do not know if my husband and I went to a different area of the park than other reviewers but it was gross in areas. Most of the time it just smelled of trash. We are from out of town and went to play the disc golf course. We found the layout confusing several times (there are multiple baskets, and only some pads have signs for what hole they are for) and lost three discs here. Two discs we lost on the second hole. They got too deep into the brush and the amount of trash we would have to go through to get to them was not worth it. One we lost to the reservoir (which we did not know was there at first). For the actual course, I hope the disc club fixes it up and adds more warnings about potential losing your discs (we found two along the way that others have lost). The amount of trash and litter was everywhere. It was deep in the woods, out in the fields, trash cans that were overflowing, and just garbage bags people had dumped. We did enjoy the difficulty and the variety of the course, just wish this area was better taken care of and had better markers.