Go elsewhere, minority youth
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 8:00AM For the record, Alderman Ed Osborne says he does not hate basketball. In fact, he said he was known to play a bit of “short and long” — I'm assuming this is somekind of basketball game from back in the day — in his youth.
And also, for the record, he says he is not a “mean guy.”
Rather, his decision to have the City of Manchester Parks, Recreation and Cemetery Department remove the basketball hoops from Enright and Harriman Parks this summer had everything to do with “trying to make my ward as livable as possible.”
This is the same guy, incidentally, who, several years ago, had the amusing traffic calming signs installed on Lake Avenue and Spruce Street for the same reason.
But this time, others take the phrase “as livable as possible,” in conjunction with the cut down basketball hoops to mean “no minority youth welcome here.”
“Ward 5 has more basketball hoops than any other ward in the city,” Osborne said. “Did you know that? Why should we take the brunt of all the city’s problems?”
While I'm not sure what connection there is, if any, to basketball and basketball players, this portion of Manchester’s center city has been one of the roughest in recent years:
View Enright Park and Harriman Park in a larger map
The area around Enright Park, especially, is known as the city’s premier prostitute pick-up spot, with johns often seen driving around and around the park in search of companionship. This, combined with what Osborne described as “gang activity,” led the Ward 5 alderman to order the removal of the hoops. He didn’t explain, however, how basketball players at the parks contributed to these problems.
In any event, the hoops disappeared and, in Enright Park, were replaced with this apparatus in younger kids toss balls:
In Harriman Park, all that’s left is an empty court:
Osborne, who describes himself as a constituent alderman (“There are two kinds of aldermen,” he explained. “You’re either a politician or a constituent alderman. I’m a constituent alderman.”), says he was just responding to the complaints of residents who live near the two center city parks.
“I was getting calls from neighbors who wouldn’t let their little kids go to the park because of the older kids. There was lots noise late at night. Now we don’t have those problems anymore,” he said.
As for those who enjoyed playing basketball at Enright or Harriman parks, Osborne said there are plenty of other places people can play basketball in Manchester, NH.
Indeed, the Parks, Recreation and Cemetery Department’s website lists some 13 city parks — not including facilities on school grounds — that contain basketball courts, including Enright and Harriman. Of course, this list was last updated on May 20, 2002. It also says Livingston and Derryfield parks contain basketball courts, though if they do I’ve never seen them.
As for those parks that actually do have hoops, they are fairly spread out, with Wolfe, Rock Rimmon and Sweeney parks on the West Side; Brown-Mitchell Park in the south end; and Stevens Park on the east side. Indeed, the only hoops that can be found in the center city — where many, if not a majority, of the “the basketball element,” as minority males in their teens and 20s are euphemistically referred to, actually live — are at Sheridan-Emmett Park and Pulaski Park.
What’s going on here?
Reader Comments (5)
Late night basketball programs only teach the browns how to go without sleep and become super criminals.
“There are two kinds of aldermen,” he explained. “You’re either a politician or a constituent alderman. I’m a constituent alderman.”
That certainly doesn't sound like a politician to me...
I would think they might find an alternative to helping clean up the crime and make the area more livable, if that's the case. Surely increased police presance would work more than removing basketball hoops from parks. :
There was a Ward 5 meeting in the past year or so -- before the removal of the hoops at Harriman Park. During that meeting, someone asked whether the basketball courts were causing problems for the residents of Ward 5 (of which I am one). To the best of my recollection, not one person of the hundred or so present felt that the hoops should be removed. Ed Osborne was at that meeting. It was quite surprising then when the hoops at Harriman -- two blocks from where I live -- were removed. It is tragic that they were also removed from Enright Park.
Thank you for the post, Will.
I am always seeing girls wearing leather mini skirts with cut off shirts and stilettos playing hoops! As for the "noise" late at night... there is a park curfew so I don't see it being a basketball hoop situation but more of a policing issue.
I don't drive and I have lost 2 basketball parks in my area and after playing a long game of b-ball I really don't feel like walking a mile or more to get back home... how am I supposed to keep my game up?
... in Osborne's defense... when you're that old, basketball is the last thing on your mind, more like trying to go to bed at 7pm (and those damn kids having fun outside keeping me awake), hairloss and that aching back.
I don't know anything about Rokas... but I wonder if he would put the nets back up...
... most politicians are old and think nothing of the younger generations... pfff
See kids play basketball.
See kids occuppied with a positive activity.
See kids stay away from crime and drugs.
See kids without a basketball hoop.
Wha'ts a bored kid to do?