Nycha Basketball: Fill & Download for Free

Harlem.It’s at 155th st and Frederick Douglass. There are some neighborhood maps that will tell you that 155th is the border between Harlem and Washington Heights and Rucker Park is on the north side of 155th so it’s in Washington Heights. But ask anyone in that park what neighborhood they’re in and the answer will be Harlem. The park is bounded on the west by NYCHA housing (which for historical, racist reasons, is majority African-American), on the south by the lower side of the Sugar Hill sub-neighborhood of harlem, and on the east by the harlem river. And as with most places in NYC, the people who are there are a blend of the diverse neighborhoods within a decent walking radius of the park, including probably some people from the Bronx across the bridge that’s right there.But it’s still part of Harlem. Culturally, it’s a Harlem touchstone as a famous ball court in (next to?) a community that really cares about basketball. The answer’s Harlem.

My experience growing up in a few inner city ghettos:The worst part of a ghetto is the environment. Its dirty, overcrowded, has poor services (ie sparse public transportation, less frequent maintenance and cleaning, etc), doesn't have a lot of green space, smog-filled, pest-filled, and on and on. Its just a very unhealthy environment, physically and mentally. It can wear on your psyche to live in it for a long time.Looking back, I noticed that I was starting to adapt weird habits (only using certain utensils and dishes, not eating at other people's houses, etc etc) that went away after I left the ghetto. I have no data on this, but I imagine its not uncommon for people who live in the ghetto long term to start developing odd coping mechanisms. For example, hoarding seemed to be not uncommon, in my experience.The people in the ghetto are the least of your problems. Like any city population, 99.99% of them will not take any interest in you whatsoever. The worst problem I've encountered from people in the ghetto is that there's always one person blasting music at 3AM. But other than that, the people are neutral at worst. Many are pretty cool. You make friends here, maybe find a significant other. Usual human activities.Me (visible face) with some friends at Fordham Road subway station, in the Bronx NY. Picture is about 10 years old. I can almost guarantee we are either going to play Yu-Gi-Oh, or just finished.The schools are quite bad, with limited resources. I didn't realize how bad until I met other people from better schools, years later. The teachers and administrators in ghettos do what they can, but its an uphill battle. Class sizes are large, usually 30+ kids to a teacher.There are no good jobs in the ghetto. In fact, there are hardly any jobs at all. Most of the businesses are mom & pops that don't hire anyone, or very small retail operations that don't hire many people. Nothing that will give you transferable skills or good career contacts. The only hope is to get a job “downtown" and climb your way up there, a tough proposition as you are competing against applicants who live downtown and have every advantage against you.Living here I had my first kiss and first gay date (both were disasters). I won a poetry award in elementary school. As a kid I would play basketball with my grandfather, who was too disabled to really play but still gave it a go every time. I would pick flowers (weeds) with my sister when we were little kids, and run around trying to give them to strangers, all of whom politely refused.I would feel intense claustrophobia at having to share an extremely small two bedroom apartment with 4 other people. My sister and I slept in the living room on the floor. As I got older I would spend less and less time at home, and when I went to college, less time still. The neighborhood decayed, and continues to decay. Trash piles up everywhere.The last time I went back there was because my grandfather had died. The neighborhood gets worse and worse. And yet, the people are the same. Still going about their business, still living life in all its mundanity despite the decay and creeping gentrification. Still just doing the things that normal people do; shopping, laughing, playing, crying, telling jokes and starting fights, and always one guy blasting music at 3AM.To live in the ghetto is to live around ordinary people--under terrible conditions:Mold, Lead, Leaks and Broken Locks. Tenants Vent Fury at Housing Authority.Tenants are angry about squalid conditions and contamination from lead and mold in the city’s public housing developments, among them the Throggs Neck Houses in the Bronx.[…]The hearing quickly became an emotional town-hall forum for residents, who vented their anger and frustration with the mismanagement of the housing authority and budget cuts that have left them with a litany of problems, including broken elevators, busted locks, leaky plumbing and unhealthy conditions created by mold and lead paint.[…]“We demand that Nycha [New York City Housing Authority] be held accountable on all issues and please stop dehumanizing the tenants,” said Monica Underwood, a resident of Wyckoff Gardens in Brooklyn. “We cannot live safely and happily in these terrible conditions.”It's not much more than that.