ZONE HEARTACHE ON THE HARDC URTS

Coronavirus shutdown leaves city ballers without a place to play the game they love

cofounder of a software company. “It’s more practicing your technique because you’re not playing points, you’re not playing against someone. It’s more like how can you improve your game?”

Even makeshift hooping is endangered these days, however. By Friday, the gates to the playground P.S. 11 were locked, and the handball courts made inaccessible.

The rims were still up around the corner on the basketball courts at P.S. 113, a well-known court and public school that has been a staple in the Fort Greene community for decades. Ike Holtz was the only person on the full court, shooting on one of few rims that had remained intact. Rob Fraebel turned the remainder of the park into a skateboard obstacle course and used the empty court to complete a ‘Nollie Shuv’ trick over a flipped-over garbage can.

Holtz, a Brooklyn native in his mid-20s, said he went to the court because he had nothing else to do. He is on Supplemental Security Income and cannot work because of his frequent bouts of seizures.

“I would go hang out with my sister, but she’s staying in the house because she thinks her landlord might have it,” he says. “So now she’s scared to come out and telling me not to come over.”

The rims were up at 8-Ball one day and gone the next. What if the same happened at P.S. 113, and the other courts with rims still intact?

“I’d be angry, but I’d understand completely. I can’t get mad or disappointed,” Holtz said. “Honestly, if you really think about everybody’s health, that is what they should do. Nobody’s gonna stop coming to play basketball. Even if they stop for a week, eventually they’re gonna say, ‘Today, I’m going.’”