When the Garden Was Eden (51 page)

Authors: Harvey Araton

I am the open man!:
Monroe lets fly while Bill Bradley waits for the pass.

Yes!:
Willis Reed hoists Bill Bradley as the buzzer sounds on the last, best moment in Knicks history, the 1973 championship.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HARVEY ARATON
has been a sports columnist for the
New York Times
since 1991. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two hoops-loving sons.

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PRAISE

“Harvey Araton, one of our most cherished basketball writers, has evocatively rendered the team that New York never stops pining for—the Old Knicks. But this is more than a nostalgic chronicle of a couple of great basketball seasons in a time of cultural upheaval. It’s a portrait of a group of proud, idiosyncratic men and the city that needed them.”

—JONATHAN MAHLER, author of
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning

“Slicing through decades of overgrown nostalgia and folklore, Harvey Araton recaptures what the Knicks of the 1970s meant to their sport, the city, a country in turmoil, the author himself, and, most important, each other. Ambitious, unrelenting, and with an uncommon eye for detail,
When the Garden Was Eden
is the perfect antidote to the malaise of present-day Knicks fans.”

—BETHLEHEM SHOALS, founder of FreeDarko.com and the coauthor of
FreeDarko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History

“Harvey Araton, who writes the way Earl the Pearl played, has made the Old Knicks new again. I learned so much, and I was there.”

—ROBERT LIPSYTE, author
An Accidental Sportswriter

“I wasn’t there when Clyde and Willis and Dollar Bill were lighting up the Garden, let alone barnstorming Philadelphia church basements, but after reading
When the Garden Was Eden
, I now feel like I was courtside with Woody and Dancing Harry.”

—WILL LEITCH, founding editor of Deadspin and author of
God Save the Fan

CREDITS

Author photograph © Robert A. Cumins

Cover photographs © George Kalinsky

Cover design by Anthony Morais

COPYRIGHT

WHEN THE GARDEN WAS EDEN
. Copyright © 2011 by Harvey Araton.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Araton, Harvey.

When the Garden was Eden : Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the glory days of the New York Knicks / by Harvey Araton.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-06-195623-2

1. New York Knickerbockers (Basketball team)—History. 2. Araton, Harvey. 3. Sportswriters—Anecdotes. I. Title.

GV885.52.N4A83 2011

796.323'64097471—dc23 2011018792

EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062097057

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ABOUT THE PUBLISHER