Basketball City on Our Waterfront

Recently, the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) signed a 20-to-30 year lease with Basketball City—a large, national private athletic corporation. The lease enables this corporation to open for business on City land in our waterfront community, on Pier 36 near South Street and Montgomery Street. We believe the lease is seriously flawed because it failed to honor promises that Basketball City made to our community. These include:

• Hiring local residents to fill part and full-time positions at the facility.
• Discounted yearly membership fees.
• Discounted daily open play fees.
• Construction of community rooms for use by local non-profit organizations and schools at no charge.

These were written promises, made over 15 years, and they were meant to address community concerns about access for local youth and families to the facility at affordable rates. Our neighbors and youth deserve nothing less than what they were promised, especially because the establishment of Basketball City on Pier 36 ignores a 1994 court Memorandum of Understanding mandating a “community recreation facility” for the Lower East Side / Chinatown area. In our opinion, a private gym with exorbitant rates cannot be called a “community recreation facility”—but apparently the City disagrees.

Two Bridges, responsible for the development of the Two Bridges Urban Renewal District for the past 35 years, never envisioned a private facility so blatantly ignoring the needs of our residents. We will not acquiesce to that and neither should you.

We share this information with you since we believe the whole affair demonstrates an egregious indifference to the youth and families of our community. Basketball City, a private entity, will now be entitled to invite consumers who can pay the fees, to conveniently park their cars there, and visit all hours of the day and night for use of a ‘community recreation facility’ mandated for our community as far back as 1994. The City’s lease with Basketball City also represents a glaring inequity in comparison to what Community Board 1 youth have in fact received from post-911 recovery funds.

The Basketball City’s lease arrangement is a disturbing issue that provides little benefit to our residents. It should wake us up, not make us complacent. We urge that you join us in communicating your feelings to Community Board 3 representatives, our elected officials and to the EDC. You can also contact Two Bridges at www.twobridges.org, where you can sign an online petition.

At present we are considering several strategies to assure that our community gets what was promised. These include legal strategies, as well as dialogue with City officials and Basketball City.

We will keep you apprised of the developments which may include soliciting your involvement in ways that make our voices heard.