History of Basketball in New York City

In honor of the NBA All-Star Game being held in New York (love the subway-inspired logo) the NBA has created a very ambitious map showing the city's important people and places.

The map is interactive in that you can choose a borough, get a list of places and people and be zoomed to the appropriate location. However, it refreshingly avoids the typical pushpins and pop-ups that come with an interactive map, going instead for a poster look.

To fit everything into the correct geographic locations some crazy things happen. In the above image Erasmus Hall High School has an inset map down at the bottom, below Coney Island. A dashed line connects it up to its actual location in central Brooklyn. Various alumnae are connected to the inset via solid orange lines-these are color coded by borough. To trace the path of my childhood hero Billy Cunningham, follow the solid orange line down from his picture and bio to the inset map, then back up along the black dashed line through his own graphic to the circle and point in the upper left corner of the above image.

Some of the most interesting stories are about the humble playgrounds where many of these players got their start - such as the West 4th Street "Cage" as detailed above. They also do a good job of showcasing female athletes such as WNBA star Sue Bird.

Click here to begin. Enjoy browsing and have a happy All-Star weekend!