The northern part of the Harlem district is home to a park that has been legendary since old times. All of this because of street basketball court opened in the 1950. Why it is so special?

In the 1950s Halcombe Rucker, director of the New York City Parks and Recreation Department, began organizing a basketball tournament for less-fortunate children. The aim was to get them interested in basketball and to draw attention from crimes and Harlem streets.

A great deal of attention was paid to the results of youth education results - the playing priority was paid for those who show good results at school. As the interest was very high, the aim was to encourage young people to make efforts at school too.

Quickly, the park became the center of action not only in the district - the best street basketball players competed here, for some of them NBA future was predicted. One of them was Earl Manigault, who was considered one of the best players in the Rucker park, but he was stopped by drug addiction. Later, a promising basketball player was imprisoned. After the death of founder Rucker in 1965, Earl returned to Harlem and worked to protect legendary court from drugs and organized basketball tournaments here.

Over time, this place has become a genuine basketball mecca and has attracted a lot of high-level basketball players. There are many legends who played here - Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving and even Careem Abdul-Jabbar. Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and many other NBA league stars also showed thei skills at Rucker Park.

You should recognize this site from the Uncle Drew videos that surfaced online. It was not forgotten also while filming a movie about Kyrie Irving embodied character that was released last summer.

NBA players nominal basketball shoes ➡ 

NBA players nominal basketball shoes ➡