Basketball Comes to the 92nd Street YMHA

In the 1900s, other Jewish institutions unevenly produced basketball teams.  The Hebrew Educational Society of Brooklyn (HES) hoped to imitate the success of the Alliance in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, but neither the 1903 or 1904 annual reports mentioned basketball.  The sport first merited a brief listing as “basketball games” under the activities section in the 1905 report.  An internal league formed two years later.[1]  Annual reports from a number of Jewish orphan asylums indicated that they offered physical culture classes, but not sport.  These institutions often commented on the underdeveloped state of the children under their care and advanced the notion that they needed corrective education, in both the physical and moral sense.  It cannot be assumed that basketball did not exist at these institutions, but the lack of mention in the annual reports indicates that even if basketball was played, it remained a minor component and unworthy of official notice.[2] 

Due to the limited number of competitive basketball teams at Jewish institutions in the 1900s, the Educational Alliance primarily played against athletic clubs and non-Jewish settlement houses in mainstream competitions.  In 1901, the Alliance Review noted that “rumors are afloat of the organization of a powerful Alliance Basket Ball team that will challenge all teams of the city.”[3]  The following year, the Alliance entered a team in the Inter-Settlement League, and in 1906, Alliance teams won the senior, middle, and junior class competitions in the league’s second division.  In 1905, however, officials had warned that, “a tendency toward professionalism has been noticed in some individual cases, especially in the indoor work.  Of course, all such ideas have been repressed.”[4]  Participation in the settlement league brought the Alliance into a mainstream basketball culture that espoused a Progressive and amateur ethos.  The New York YMHA participated in the same culture, but officials attempted to focus on the mass, not the elite athlete, within the physical education program.

In spring 1900, the New York YMHA moved into a permanent building on 92^nd Street, which provided greater athletic opportunity and larger gymnasium facilities.[5]  Members initiated the formation of a competitive basketball team, but officials wanted Jewish institutional basketball to exist within the context of a ‘character-building’ ideology.  The first notice of an organized YMHA basketball team occurred in the November 1900 issue of the YMHA Bulletin, and simply stated: “a basket-ball team is being formed.”  The following month, the Bulletin declared that the squad “appeared in their new uniforms, and the effect was dazzling,” and in January 1901, it praised the YMHA’s victory over “seven or eight outside teams.” The Bulletin also stated that:

Our men are beginning to realize the great possibilities for physical improvement to be derived from the game and are doing all in their power to make it clean, healthful, and sportsmanlike…[to] eliminate all rough playing and make the sport one in which players can win a victory with becoming modesty or accept a defeat without bitter feeling.  It rests with the players to make the game all that it should be, and they can then depend upon the good will and active co-operation of the officials of the YMHA.[6]

The Bulletin passage warned that if basketball were to exist at the Association, players needed to ensure the “co-operation” of officials.  Basketball had not gained the complete acceptance of YMHA officials who believed it taught correct values when played according to its original intentions and provided “physical improvement” within an environment devoid of improper behavior.  The elimination of “all rough playing” would allow participants to attain the necessary moral education.  Competition needed to be “clean” so that basketball could be used as a means to accomplish healthy and positive ends.

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[1] Daniel Soyer, “Brownstones and Brownsville: Elite Philanthropists and Immigrant Constituents at the Hebrew Educational Society of Brooklyn, 1889-1929,” American Jewish History 88, no. 2 (2000): 181-206.  Also see the Hebrew Educational Society, Annual Reports, 1903-1907.

[2] The annual reports viewed were between 1895-1905 at the Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum, the Pacific Hebrew Orphan Asylum, and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York. It is known that the HOA of New York did have basketball at the institution by the 1910s.  The Hebrew Educational Society of Philadelphia did not mention a gymnasium, physical culture, or any sport in the annual reports from 1900, 1901, and 1905. On orphan asylums, see Gary E. Polster, Inside Looking Out: The Cleveland Jewish Orphan Asylum, 1868-1924 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1990); Hyman Bogen, The Luckiest Orphans: A History of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992); Reena S. Friedman, These Are Our Children: Jewish Orphanages in the United States, 1880-1925 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994).

[3] “Clubs and Classes,” Alliance Review (November 1901).

[4] On the championship results of the settlement league, see “Basket Ball Records,” Official Handbook of the Inter-Settlement Athletic Association of Greater New York (New York: A.G. Spalding & Bros., 1908).  On the warning against professionalism, see Educational Alliance, Thirteenth Annual Report, 1905 (New York: Educational Alliance, 1906).

[5] For changes at the YMHA, see Riess, City Game, 100; David Kaufman, Shul with a Pool: The ‘Synagogue Center’ in American Jewish History (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999), 52-60, 72.   The development of the communal center represented the gradual transformation of American Jewish life that would take place over the next few decades as eastern European immigrants and their children eventually organized American Jewish life.  For general information on the 92^nd Street YMHA, see Rabinowitz, The Young Men’s Hebrew Association, 56.  In 1899, the total gymnasium attendance was 5,644.  In 1901, the total attendance was 17,326 and only the library attracted more visitors.  The physical department’s income also increased, from $168.50 to $3,839.95.  See Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y archives, New York.  

[6] For mention of basketball, see “Physical Department,” YMHA Bulletin, November, December 1900. Quote from “Basket Ball,” YMHA Bulletin, January 1901. Institutional members appear to have initiated the formation of a representative basketball team.  See Minutes of the Board of Directors, October 1900, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  The best source for information on the YMHA’s daily operations in the early 1900s is the daily journal of William Mitchell, the superintendent from 1898-1912 (he resigned in 1912 to work for the United Hebrew Charities of Brooklyn).  He noted in his journal that the Executive Committee agreed to “add a complete Basket Ball team outfit to the Gym.” See William Mitchell Journal, October 21, 1900, Young Men’s Hebrew Association records, 92^nd Street Y Archives, New York.  Mitchell often noted basketball games, though with little mention of the events beyond the final score.  The need to petition the YMHA board indicates that athletics could not be organized on an informal basis. The 1900 Annual Report mentioned basketball, but did not mention the existence of competitive games outside the institution. The Bulletin began in the spring of 1900, just after the institution opened the 92^nd Street building.