In my entry a couple days ago I quoted New York Nets basketball player Kenyon Martin. I'm not huge basketball fan but I follow the sport. I watched the Nets on TV when they were in the ABA. competing against the likes of the Kentucky Colonels and 7' 2" Artis Gilmore, who always reminded me, with his evil goatee, of Satan in a 'fro. Pity Net's center Billy Paultz -- "The Whopper" -- when he went lumbering up against Artis. Luckily the Nets also had Julius Erving on their side. Unfortunately, when they entered the NBA. they sold Doc to Philadelphia and subsequently spent several decades, until the past two years, as league sad sacks. Curse of the Doctor anyone?

Now the Nets' new owner wants to move the team to a sports and entertainment and who knows what all complex to be built in downtown Brooklyn, not far from where I used to live. I didn't go to downtown Brooklyn much. Usually I walked as far as Borough Hall and took the subway into Manhattan instead. Once I needed a suit for some long-forgotten reason. In my life suits have been pretty much just hanging moth chow so I didn't want to spend much. So I went downtown and I found a seersucker number on sale. $40. Of course it didn't fit since they don't don't make clothes to fit skeletons. (Yeah, I wonder why my favorite NBA player of all time was Manute Bol ?) That's often a problem, but in downtown Brooklyn, up until the late seventies at least, you'd still be measured and get free alterations on a $40 suit. Talk about a time warp.

Back then the neighborhoods I used to walk though didn't look much different than they did when these pictures at The Museum of the City of New York were taken. I suppose things will change if the Nets new complex goes in.