My wife and I returned home recently from a brief trip to New York City to visit relatives. When we stayed in the Big Apple, we decided to stay in a hotel close to where I once lived on the Upper West Side of the City. It was a great experience walking the same streets I once did many years ago when I was much younger, but what caught my immediate attention on Riverside Drive was a playground where during the evening we would sit and catch the breezes from the Hudson River. There, shuttered between the West Side Highway and Riverside Drive, was this magnificent place where children and adults played. Within the borders of cooperatives and condos costing many millions of dollars and rents starting at $3,124. for a studio apartment was this sacred garden of pleasure. On one half of this playground children laughed, ran in and out of water jets to escape the heat and on the other half young and old played basketball in four full courts. I wished I had my camera with me to take pictures of the courts so that some of the people in Charles Village could see how the sport of basketball was in fashion and demand by the New York City elites, young and old, enjoying very vigorous exercise with sons and daughters, friends and classmates in this well-to-do part of this magnificent metropolitan city.
Upon returning home to Baltimore, a neighbor with whom we chatted during a visit to our home recounted a story about two Dominican brothers who were recently visiting various areas of the neighborhood in the hope of building their parish community. When they passed the basketball court on 26th Street and St. Paul they met a group of youngsters happily tossing "hoops". In explaining his enthusiasm for the beautiful new court one young man threw his arms out wide and exclaimed to the brothers "This is our Kingdom!" Then he ran to join in with his other companions there, at the only basketball court in our community of Charles Village. The sound of that child's voice, as described by my neighbor who was present at that incident, still resounds in my brain and forces me to write this little item about a basketball court that some are planning on making smaller and moving to another location. All I can think of is the joy and happiness that this Baltimore City basketball court gives this young man and so many other neighborhood children and adults, where it is and as it is, a spacious and precious space.
What is so offensive in it to some people that the joys of adults and children do not take center stage over some plan to destroy or change a place that is so special, so important to our City's children? This "Kingdom" is here, it is now and it is a place that celebrates all those who come and enjoy their energy and freedom. There is no need to remove it. There is no need to destroy it by diminishing it. It is a tribute to the children and adults of this community who love the sport of basketball and which costs very little for any of them to participate in. Surely our children are as important as those in NYC's Upper East Side. Leave it alone, and let the boy who spoke to the Brothers enjoy his kingdom now and in the future. If you tear it down, you will destroy yet another hope of another person who thought he could dream, who thought people cared about him and his friends.
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