The Challenge to Naismith panel in the Monument to the First Game of Basketball on Mason Square, 2011
Description:
A photograph of the challenge to Naismith panel for the memorial monument to the creation of the game of Basketball on Mason Square in Springfield Massachusetts. The memorial sits across the street (State Street) from the original site of the School for Christian Workers building where the game was first played. A McDonald's currently sits on the site.
Text and images are owned, held, or licensed by Springfield College and are available for personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that ownership is properly cited. A credit line is required and should read: Courtesy of Springfield College, Babson Library, Archives and Special Collections. Any commercial use without written permission from Springfield College is strictly prohibited. Other individuals or entities other than, and in addition to, Springfield College may also own copyrights and other propriety rights. The publishing, exhibiting, or broadcasting party assumes all responsibility for clearing reproduction rights and for any infringement of United States copyright law.
Contact host institution for more information.
The Memorial was dedicated on August 8, 2010. The memorial consists of an adult passing the ball to a child, and is surrounded by plexiglass panels that tell the history of the game of basketball. Also included are the front steps to the building that were saved when the building was torn down. The School for Christian Workers (now Springfield College) Building was built on the corner of State and Sherman streets in Springfield, Massachusetts. 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 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.
This is originally a digital image saved as a jpg file. A master, uncompressed tiff was created, along with a print copy that was set into the physical collection to maintain consistency within the collection;
