Swish You Were Here
On November 17, 2023, P.S. 116 principal Jane Hsu and PTA co-president
The grassroots volunteer program Swish You Were Here supplies and installs full new nets for public New York City basketball rims with missing or damaged nets. The program is managed by St. Vartan Park Conservancy affiliate Manhattan East Community Association in cooperation with the Conservancy.
On July 9, 2024, at Robert Moses Playground one block south of the United Nations campus, Swish You Were Here installed its 100th basketball net (foreground in background photo and being put up in upper right photo) since the start of the program
Swish You Were Here volunteer Matthew Bondy installs a new net on a basketball rim at Manhattan’s Twenty-Four Sycamore Park alongside the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge on February 27, 2022
In 2020, two years before he founded St. Vartan Park Conservancy, Kevin O’Keefe started Swish You Were Here through the support of Manhattan Community Board 6, NYC Parks and Partnerships for Parks.
Dean Theodos (left) stands with Kevin O’Keefe on the Augustus St. Gardens Playground court on Second Avenue near East 19th Street on September 19, 2020, following the first-ever Swish You Were Here nets-installation session
The program’s first stage featured installation of a new net by O’Keefe and community resident Dean Theodos on each outdoor public basketball rim in need of one in Manhattan Community District 6, including NYC Parks and school hoops. The project has since expanded to other areas of the city.
On February 22, 2022, the same day New York City City Council Member Julie Menin sent word that basketball rims at St. Catherine’s Park on First Avenue between East 67th and East 68th Streets had long been without nets, Swish You Were Here installed these three and other nets at the park
To request installation of a needed public basketball net, please contact team@stvartanpark.org.
Learn about basketball at St. Vartan Park on the Basketball page.
Retrospection
“Kevin O’Keefe . . . noted that the new nets aren’t just a low-cost solution that makes basketball a more enjoyable game for the thousands of kids and even adults who use the hoops in the community . . . ‘rims without nets can be seen as a universal sign of urban blight, so just by putting up some nice new nets everywhere within the community, it checks that box as well’ . . . Soon after one of the new nets was installed at Bellevue South, the basketball players nearby soon gathered on the court to play, saying that they cherished the ‘swish’ sound a net makes after a made basket. ‘We appreciate you guys for putting up the nets, it’s a very heartwarming thing. And plus, the new nets actually saves us from the ball from going over the fence and rolling down the street,’ said Jordan.”
