Best of SI: With COVID-19, No Basketball in NYC

What happens when the good of the people pushes up against love of the game? In New York City, where street ball breathes life into the darkest corners, hoops are coming down to save lives. This is what the game looks like on pause, halted by the coronavirus

Roosevelt Purvis slips a white 3M mask over his dreadlocks and Yankees hat as he ambles along East 143rd Street in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx. Lincoln Hospital is two blocks away. Sirens mix with birdsong.

Purvis, 59, is in the epicenter of a pandemic. The coronavirus and its consequences are clear to him. His godson, Lee Green, a former St. John’s basketball player who went on to join the New York City Police Department, was one of the earliest victims in the borough. Purvis thumbs a remembrance card. His friend—more like a brother than a godson—was 49.

“Neighborhood hero!” Purvis says, rattling off Lee’s résumé. “Tolentine High! Cheshire Academy! St. John’s!”

Blue rubber gloves line the path on Purvis’s walk to Building No. 281 in the Patterson Houses, a wedge of 15 towering low-income units, a short jump from Yankee Stadium. Inside, leaflets dot the hallway walls: WHAT NEW YORKERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT COVID-19. Purvis retraces the route he used to walk each day as a teenager, aiming to wake up Green, who lived in Apartment 1A. Today, he eyes Green’s old window.

“Yo, Lee!” Purvis hollers, mimicking his old order. “Throw the ball out [so I can] get the court!”

Outside lies a patch of fenced-in asphalt—Patterson Square Garden to those who know. Green grew up shooting here. When it snowed, the boy with the big feet pulled on his father’s sneakers and pushed a shovel to clear the court. In the summer, he competed with all comers, negotiating his way to the basket with elbows-out aggressiveness. “I can still hear his laugh,” says Purvis.

Click Here to read the rest of "Love (and Death) and Basketball," for FREE at Sports Illustrated!