Dr. J visits Springfield to Celebrate Anniversary of Basketball's Creation (December 23, 2024)
Description:
An article printed off the WAMC Northeast Public Radio website on March 12, 2025 titled "Dr. J visits Springfield to Celebrate Anniversary of Basketball's Creation." It was written and reported by James Paleologopoulos and published on December 23, 2024. To see the original article and to listen to the report, see:https://www.wamc.org/news/2024-12-23/dr-j-visits-springfield-to-celebrate-anniversary-of-basketballs-creation. The article talks about the dedication of a new memorial to the creation of basketball on Mason Square. Julius Erving or Dr. J was in attendance. There is a photograph of him standing with other officials. The building has been known by many different names over the years including the Winchester Square Building, the Mason Square building and the Armory Hill building. Construction on the building was completed in the spring of 1886 and it was dedicated on June 1 of that year. The building consisted of a reading room, gymnasium, parlor, a recitation room, an amusement room and fifty sleeping rooms. The Armory Hill YMCA also rented rooms in the building. In 1891 James Naismith, while a faculty member at the school, invented the game of basketball in the gymnasium of the building. In 1890 the School for Christian Workers separated into two schools which continued to operate out of the same building, the YMCA Training School and the School for Christian Workers. In 1896 the Training School, now Springfield College, finished the transition to its new location on Alden Street and in 1897 the School for Christian Workers became the Bible Normal College and moved to Hartford, Connecticut. The original building was torn down in 1965 to create a parking lot. In 1995, McDonald’s Corporation bought the land, excavating the original foundation and bricks before building a restaurant on the site. Today, there is a monument commemorating the site as the birthplace of basketball.
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