You must read first : A French in New York

Monday, 22th of September, our first week in New York is starting. Romain found a place to sleep in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and me in Spanish Harlem. It was hard to be really synchronized everyday because we were on two different areas.
Our first day of chilling started at Union Square, and went upper town. We didn’t have any bball games planned or any open gym session so we decided to walk and search for the bball court in Central Park. After a few minutes, we found that ” Great Lawn Playground”. Two full courts on a green concrete, low rims, nets, half circled boards and this plate on the ground : ” Foot locker and Nike basketball court”. Some kids were playing, we just started to shoot, two kids joined us and as usual I took some pictures.

Foot Locker and Nike Basketball courts

Grey clouds were above our heads, there was no real competition, luckily I got a call from k1x boy Stephan who invited us to play in Fordham University in the Bronx. So we took the 4 train to Fordham road and succeeded to catch a bus that dropped us in front of the campus. We entered Fordham Univ. and it was like a college movie, lots of student houses, a library, guards, big baseball, football, softball fields…When you’re European , you can only understand why American are good at sports considering the infrastructures provided to the students. We got access to the basketball gym for 8 $ per person, it was great, 3 basketball courts surrounded by a running track with an open door to the outside fields. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of players, some young students and a Fordham player training with his ballboy. We played a few games with the students , it was a little bit dirty, they weren’t confirmed ballers so in this situation it’s hard to play pure basketball. Anyway the session was good, it was our American Pie night in the Bronx, I left the spot with this weird feeling of sorrow on my basketball career and this question why I didn’t come in U.S university when I was young ? …it’s obvious I’m tired , I need to sleep to forget those stupid ideas.

Road to Fordham…

I woke up on Tuesday 23rd with a new appointment on Sprint St. & Broadway corner. We wanted to visit some stores on Canal Street . We chilled in this Chinatown area and felt on Columbus Park. Eight ballers were active on the courts, we stopped to watch the games, It was fun because they all had that ” I do bench press” style. They were all smaller than 5′9 inches, with thin legs, but wide chest and arms. Despite their over-developped body, some of them were good ballers, surprisingly the one feeding his team’s scoring was playing in jeans and Timberland boots. On the other hoop, a guy stopped to practice, he wasn’t a regular baller, he seemed to be a worker doing his noon break, he was here on the basketball court working on his lay-ups , in New York : The Basketball City

Columbus playground sessions…

To be continued…