New York Forever.
Life as a New Yorker, Embodied in a Basketball Team
The video board during player warm ups displayed three simple words “New York Forever''. I quickly snapped a photo before they vanished. Me and my dad sat down in our seats and watched the team introduction before the start of the game. Smoke machines blew white fog on either side of the tunnel as players trotted out to their names being flamboyantly introduced over the loudspeaker. The team’s dancers were dressed in orange and blue tracksuits— they did hip-hop style choreography over center court as R&B music played in the background. A video montage played flashing pictures of players and landmarks of the city, it ended with the Knicks logo and a loud home crowd cheer. On the train ride home I edited the photo to black and white and set it to my lock screen so I could see those words any time I wanted.
My first true feelings of hometown pride, evoked in those three words.
“New Yorkers make being from New York their whole personality”. I read on the comments of a Youtube video of a guy interviewing people in the middle of Times Square about New York slang. I liked the comment, because it is true—somewhat. Buried beneath the layers of each New Yorker’s individuality is our foundation for life— the fact that we were born in the greatest city in the world— and we have to live up to it.
Growing up in New York is a privilege. Culture flows out from the seams of the sidewalks like a free flowing faucet. As you turn corners you hear languages you thought only were spoken in movies and smell food thought only to be cooked in native countries. Endless opportunities of a lifetime lay rested on your fingertips. There are not many places in the world where you can get traditional Chinese tea service and then watch a giant Elmo take pictures with Dora the Explorer while Cate Blanchett walks past them in Jimmy Choo’s purchased 2 blocks over.
Yet living in New York at times feels cursed. Beat down after beat down— violent crimes, terrorist attacks, deadly viruses, destructive hurricanes. Never ending property tax increases, 1/3 of your salary taken for state ‘infrastructure improvements’. 3,000 dollars to rent a single room with a sink and a toilet. $10 coffees and tearing down 70 year old small businesses for another Whole Foods. Never ending blows that continue to bruise an aching body.
It instills in us a sense of defiance— an instinct to fight so strong Mike Tyson would beam with pride.
So we strap on the gloves and enter into the ring— we will do 12 rounds every day if we have to— the inborn stubbornness that comes with the loss, the grind, the unrelenting nature of life here pushing us to infinite limits. The deeper you jab the harder we will cross. Tenacity unleashed by only the most ferocious of fighters. Maybe that’s why trash talk ensues before even being provoked— the hope that controlling the narrative before the story begins will change the ending— stop the onslaught of endless hooks to the mouth.
To be a New Yorker is accepting, nay, embracing, the fact that you are getting into the ring every day and every day you fight to win. Giving 100%—every last drop of gas in the tank, breathing until breathless, never saying die despite the ring of the bell, every single day you have the privilege to live—because we’ve seen that any day could be your last.
But over time we’ve learned to love the fight, the test of strength and feeling of free flowing confidence.“You think you’re stronger than me? I’ve been through a global pandemic that ravaged my city, my landlord tried to get me evicted for a $1000 rent increase I paid 3 weeks ago all while I nearly got paralyzed on the Long Island Expressway trying to change lanes with a duct-taped 2003 minivan— try me”.
These unending trials and tribulations we face only seem to make our skin only grow thicker, pride roar stronger. This strange sense of community through pain, heartbreak and hunger. The ache for liberation seeped with unrelenting hope.
We find it mirrored in these Knicks.
They play basketball the way we live life.
Filled with toughness and pride and guts— the innate inability to give anything but our all. The feelings, all the feelings of pain and heartache and passion that flow out of us so boundlessly from everything we endure in this widely overwhelming and beautiful place we call home.
They show them.
They show them in their blue collar, defense first, fighting in the 4th quarter up 35 pts for the offensive rebound style of basketball. They show them in their unflinching ability to command the stage. They show them in the way they out hustle, out smart, and out grit these teams. These teams that let themselves die when they are down 10, 15, 25 pts these Knicks, these Knicks never die.
No these Knicks strap on the gauntlet and look eye to eye with the opposer and say the words all New Yorkers live by saying— “bring it on”.
The attitude of a perpetual underdog with the confidence of an undefeated champion.
These Knicks are us.
They take it to the ring and refuse to give anything but everything because they carry our pain. Its palpable in our pride— our aching cheers of a tragic story steeped with the hope of eventual relief. They strap it on their backs and carry it like their own. Its as if the moment the words “New York” lay etched across their chest they become one of us— moving and shifting in ways we feel— ways we fight. Ripping and tearing across the court as we run to the subway and elbow our way to a seat. Pushing and shoving on defense as we bully our way to the top of the staircase, edge of the sidewalk. Falling apart late was we fight another day of tragedy. Battling back from behind as we remember why we still live in this place, why we still love this place.
Our symbiotic Knicks.
Our relentless, tenacious, heart-filled Knicks.
Thank you for being us.
All of us.
Amazing piece Grace.
Amen 🙏🙏