When the Garden Was Eden

The late 1960s and early 1970s, in New York City and the country at large, were years marked by political tumult, social unrest?and the best professional basketball ever played. Paradise, for better or worse, was a hardwood court in Midtown Manhattan.

When the Garden Was Eden is the definitive account of how the New York Knickerbockers won their first and only championships, and in the process provided the nation no small escape from the Vietnam War, the tragedy at Kent State, and the last vestiges of Jim Crow.

In When the Garden Was Eden, Harvey Araton not only traces the history of New York?s beloved franchise?from Ned Irish to Spike Lee to Carmelo Anthony?but profiles the lives and careers of one of sports? all-time great teams, the Old Knicks. From the Louisiana home of the Captain, Willis Reed; to the lush gardens of Walt ?Clyde? Frazier?s St. Croix oasis; to the political office of Senator Bill Bradley, Araton relives their most glorious triumphs, bitter rivalries, and casts light on a time when the Garden, Madison Square, was its own sort of Eden.