Comments (0) Best Basketball Courts for Spectators - 2012
Cage at West 4th Street
If you're looking to watch some top-notch pickup basketball, or if you think you're good enough to run with some of the city's best, New York's most legendary court is unquestionably the Cage at West 4th Street. Half the size of a standard court and so tightly crammed inside its chain-link fence that the out-of-bounds line is ignored, the court is like a panopticon of high-grade hoops. The close quarters favor a bruising, physical style of play, and it's easy to spend whole afternoons watching game after game, as a grudge from a rough play gets paid back with an elbow an hour later. The courts have a long legacy—pro ballers from Anthony Mason back to the young Lew Alcindor have graced the asphalt, along with decades of street-ball legends remembered and unremembered. The courts are home to one of New York's best-known summer leagues, with divisions for men, women, and children. The cramped facilities can sometimes make the play a little ragged, but the truth is, for most of the past 30 years, there has been better ball played in the Cage than in Madison Square Garden. West 4th Street and Sixth Avenue, nycgovparks.org (10012)
