Bread City Basketball


The Lost Logo of the 1975 Giants
February 4, 2012, 12:41 pm
Filed under: Bread City, Football, New York City | Tags: 1970s Culture, New York City History, New York Giants, Super Bowl XLVI

In 1975, the New York Giants were a team without a country. They were in the wilderness. Their stadium in New Jersey was still being constructed, and the Yankees (the Giants’ old landlord) had kicked them out to do renovations.

So the Giants had no place to play home games, and to make matters worse, they were terrible. Facing an uncertain future, the team did the only thing they could do. They designed a new logo: an italics-mixed-case-disco-racing-stripe-NY emblem of questionable decision-making. It was the NFL uniform equivalent of a drunk tattoo. It was awesome. And it only lasted for that single season.

The Giants ended up playing through the year at Shea Stadium in Queens. In 1976, the team moved in to their home at the Meadowlands, and wasted no time in changing to a logo that was NY/NJ-neutral. It was their banner through two epic Super Bowl victories. Here’s to one more: BEAT NEW ENGLAND!

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Best Side
February 1, 2012, 9:14 am
Filed under: Bread City, New York City, Photography, Poetry | Tags: Food, New York City Culture, West Side

Hot bowl of pastina,
23rd Street and the river.
Subway grime patina,
shout to chopped liver.

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photo by Stephan Alessi

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Every Basketball Court in Manhattan
January 10, 2012, 6:55 am
Filed under: Art, Basketball, Bread City, New York City, Photography | Tags: Google Satellite View, Jenny Odell, Photography

Jenny Odell makes collages from Google Maps’ satellite view mode, like the digital print entitled Every Basketball Court in Manhattan. She writes, “From this view, the lines that make up basketball courts… become like hieroglyphs that read: people were here.”

There are at least 100 in this image. Still, there’s no way she got them all. My favorite courts are somehow obscured. Some are partially hidden from view in chain-link rooftop domes. Others are concealed below the West Side Highway, so safe from the elements that you can play a pick-up game in a hurricane. And many are simple backboards in schoolyards without lines or marks.

But Odell is right about one thing: The court is a record. There are no written accounts or pick-up game historians. The physical court itself is the only proof we have of what happened there.

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DON’T HASSLE ME I’M LOCAL
September 16, 2011, 11:46 am
Filed under: Art, Bread City, New York City | Tags: 1990s Aesthetics, Bootleg Culture, Ninja Turtles, Temporary Tattoos

Homemade temporary tattoo, 2011. For all the locals: keep your rep up.

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ON HIATUS
October 11, 2009, 12:13 pm
Filed under: Basketball, Bread City, New York City, Photography | Tags: Danny Weiss, Upper West Side

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photo by Danny Weiss
CLICK HERE for full size

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FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM
September 16, 2009, 9:42 am
Filed under: Basketball, Bread City, New York City, Photography, Sports Photography, Video Games | Tags: Holga Photography, New York City Culture, Polaroid Photography

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GOODBYE BROOKLYN
September 9, 2009, 2:47 pm
Filed under: Basketball, Bread City, Chicago Bulls, New York City, Video | Tags: 1990s NBA, Charles Oakley, John Paxson, Violence in sports

NYC IS A STATE OF MIND, BEST REPRESENTED BY CHARLES OAKLEY’S ELBOW. I’LL BE BACK.

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EBBETS FIELD REMIX
August 29, 2009, 12:08 am
Filed under: Art, Baseball, Bread City, Brooklyn, History, New York City, Sports Photography | Tags: 1930s Culture, Brooklyn Dodgers, Ebbets Field, New York City History

The first night game at Ebbets Field was played on June 15, 1938. Colorized in 2009.

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CLICK HERE TO VIEW FULL SIZE

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CRYBURY
August 17, 2009, 1:07 am
Filed under: Basketball, Bread City, Brooklyn, New York Knicks, Video | Tags: Internet Culture, Stephon Marbury, Weed, Worst Knicks Ever

Stephon Marbury’s internet livecam is 100% the best reason for the internet.  In case you forgot: this guy once ran the floor in the Garden. Now there is a 24/7 window into the depths of his basketball-free bad judgment and paranoia. I’ve been dreaming of a show like this for years.

With just a little clicking around youtube highlights you can see him blazing roaches in the back of the black Phantom, getting into car accidents, eating Vaseline, and running his mouth way too much in sporting goods stores, in no particular order. But who cares about highlights? As long as this thing exists, I am watching live.

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UPPER WEST SIDE, 2005
May 28, 2009, 12:41 am
Filed under: Bread City, New York City, Photography, Poetry | Tags: New York City Culture, Summer, West Side

up on riverside and ninety-five
sidewalk heat
3 bags of lye
2 girls on a stoop
waiting for the bus
1 had a tennis racket
so we lit up the dutch.

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photo by AC Berkheiser
CLICK HERE for full size

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MSG III
February 13, 2009, 12:01 am
Filed under: Architecture, Basketball, Bread City, College Basketball, Madison Square Garden, New York City, Sports Photography | Tags: Basketball History, MSG III, New York City History, St. John's Redmen, USF

Madison Square Garden, aka The Garden, aka The Mecca, is on its fifth life.

Sixty years before Marbury’s MSG there was a crazy open-air Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City, and before that one were the first two arenas actually on Madison Avenue in the late 1800s. But it was Madison Square Garden III, a behemoth built by a boxing promoter on 50th Street and 8th Avenue, that cemented its legend status as the World’s Most Famous Arena.

MSG III’s grand opening event was a six day indoor bicycle race in November of 1925, but boxing and ice hockey were the stadium’s real bread and butter, drawing massive crowds. It became such a huge deal for a boxer to appear at the Garden that even the big shots got stage fright in the locker room. The Knicks made their Garden debut in 1948, but college ball pulled in more at the III. Below, St. John’s faces U. of Frisco in some throwback NIT action.

Check how bad the old blue seats were. Cigarette/cigar smoking was allowed and arena ventilation was nonexistent. If you sat in those way-upper decks, by the second half it was like watching a basketball game from inside of a house fire.

MSG III was torn down in 1968 and remained a Hell’s Kitchen parking lot for twenty-one years. It’s now the site of One Worldwide Plaza, a 49-story skyscraper that is currently the 87th tallest building in the world.

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photo by the great Ralph Morse
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CONEY ISLAND
December 29, 2008, 12:41 am
Filed under: Bread City, Brooklyn, New York City, Photography, Poetry | Tags: Brooklyn Poetry

Wire trash cans swarmed
by bees, hair gets salty
in the breeze then sunset sand
and quarts of beer
men stand fishing on the pier.
Fire crackles hot and dry
red waves lap closer
reflecting the sky.

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photo by Nicholas Breslow
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VOTE MARBURY
November 27, 2008, 1:50 pm
Filed under: Basketball, Bread City, Brooklyn, New York Knicks, Politics | Tags: Basketball Politics, Stephon Marbury

LET’S MAKE STEPHON MARBURY THE FIRST ALL STAR TO PLAY 0 REGULAR SEASON MINUTES. YES WE CAN!

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vote here, vote often, vote coney

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