New York City hand forges basketball hoops
He's a bit of trivia for you. Where does New York City get it's park basketball hoops from? Why they have someone in the parks department hand forge them! Who knew? The New York Times has a story up about it. It seems that a few blacksmiths in the parks department have forged and fabricated thousands of rims over the years. Quite interesting. Makes me wonder how one can get a job with the parks department as a resident blacksmith!
Comments
Subway Blacksmiths
Wow. That makes a lot of sense. I had never stopped to think about it before I guess. I am really intrigued by the possibility of working a city maintenance job as a smith. I think that would be a lot of fun. I know I read about blacksmiths still working for the railroad up in Chicago. It makes sense that supporting infrastructure that old, and that unique would require flexibility and adaptability. Something blacksmiths are good at!
New York Blacksmiths
While this is the first I have heard about basketball hoops, I have known for some time that the city of New York has kept several blacksmiths on staff because of the subways. Many of the subways were originaly installed more than a centruy ago and replacement parts simply are not comonnly manufactured anylonger, if they ever were in the first place. Even machine shops cannot deal with non-standard parts which were originally made onsite, for a specific application. Blacksmiths are able to more readily adapt to the idividual situation and keep old systems operating in modern times. Perhaps these are the same blacksmiths who make the basketball hoops in their spare time?