116th Street Lenox Avenue (King Towers) Pearl Washington vs Kenny Hutchinson Game 1983

One of the most well known areas and landmark locations in Harlem has always been 116th Street and Lenox Avenue (now known as 116th and Malcolm X Boulevard). This area was a major hotspot long before my street running days in the 70's and 80's.

One sixteenth was one of those main arteries in Harlem that attracted people from all over the city. It was similar to 125th street, where the Apollo and many of Harlem's best shopping attractions were. 116th sort of belonged to people living in lower Harlem and the East Side while 125th was more the stomping ground for people who lived further uptown. Both areas were interchangeable for most, but if you lived beyond 125th, you were more likely to run into someone you knew on 125th, than on 116th and vice versa. In the late 60's and 70's 116th was also a place you might see throngs of heroin addicts, and enough junkies to disrupt traffic in broad daylight. It was a spectacle. This was the height of the black American Gangster, not to be confused with the mostly fictitious version introduced to Hollywood by Frank Lucas. There were several, some would say more authentic, versions of the American Gangster with names like Freddie Meyers, Nicky Barnes, Pee Wee Kirkland and Frank Matthews.

Ironically, side by side with gangsterism, was activism. The Black Panther Party was out on those streets and so was the NOI and Malcolm X. Malcolm while alive electrified Harlem and had just as many people converting to Islam as were trying to become gangsters. His main hangout spot was the Muslim bakery on the corner of 116th street and Lenox. For me, aside from the junkies, gangsters and Muslims, 116th was about the King Towers basketball tournament.

Malcolm X at 116th

In the 1960's 116th street was a frequent location for activist like Malcolm X to reach masses of Harlem's residents.

King Towers Public Housing was one of many public housing complexes in Harlem hosting summer basketball tournaments. There wasn't a more popular tournament than King Towers in the early 80's. Pro's, college stars and street legends all converged at the Towers. I watched the McCray (Rodney & Scooter) and the Williams (Ray & Gus) brothers play down there. I learned from street legends like Alonzo "Cheese" Johnson, Sam Worthen and Artie Green. I once saw Tony "Red" Bruin glide so high for a dunk it looked like an animation he was in the air so long. The list of talent was so long coming through the Towers, if you weren't playing down there, it could be assumed that maybe you just weren't good enough for that level of competition.

The best game I witnessed down at King Towers came from two of my most celebrated peers, Kenny Hutchinson and Pearl Washington. I knew both pretty well. Hutch and I were playing for Dykeman in 1981, when we beat Pearl's Gaucho team in the Governor's Cup at Roberto Clemente State Park in the Bronx. The Gaucho's also had John Salley but we had Walt B, Derrick "Mummy" Robinson and Big Olden Polynice, all capable of dealing with Salley. I had 23 that game, none of them in garbage time, so I thought I might get MVP but that honor went to Hutch. I shrugged it off. Hutch was my man and was a High School All American, and I wasn't, so I was cool with just winning the chip. Aside from all that, my main takeaway from the championship game against the Gauchos was that Pearl was going to be a problem going forward. And he was.

CROWDS LIKE THESE WERE ROUTINE AT KING TOWERS

That problem manifested itself in 1983 at a game in King Towers. Pearl was known for arriving to games in Harlem on a motorcycle, sometimes with his light skinned honey strapped to his back. By 1983 Pearl was rocking parks wherever he went and Harlem was no exception. The crowds were THICK and MANIC over this dude. On this day he was going head to head with a dynamic 6'5 point guard in Kenny Hutchinson who pretty much had NYC on lock for nearly four years. Out of all the noteworthy young point guards like Mark Jackson, Kenny Smith, a young Rod Strickland and Pearl Washington, Kenny Hutch was still the headliner in most cases.

I went into that game thinking one way and came out thinking another. I knew Kenny Hutch's game well. I'd known him since 78. He was lanky with hops and excelled by exploiting angles, using his dynamic ball handling to get to spots on the court where he caused people problems. Hutch was also fearless, he was going to challenge you and went into most games trying to assert pressure on offense and defense. Hutch had a "pro" mentality and I liked that about him so I was leaning toward him coming out on top in his battle with Pearl.

It was a hot summer night and everyone seemed to be in the Dome that night. There were a lot of other ballers in the crowd, cats with big reps in the streets. I don't want to give the impression that Pearl simply destroyed Hutch, cuz he didn't. But I can tell you now I don't remember who Hutch was playing for, or who's team Pearl was on. I don't remember their teammates, or their coaches on the sidelines, though I suspect little E-vee was coaching Hutch's team. I don't even remember who won the game. What stuck with me even 30 years later is not even Pearl's 55 points, even though I remember he had 55. It was the way Pearl got his 55 that made it memorable. He captivated the night. People weren't even watching the game, they were watching Pearl! It didn't matter what anyone else was doing that night, Pearl maneuvered and crossed over and weaved in and out of defenders like he was playing a video game. The more pressure they tried to apply, the more dynamic his ball maneuvers became. The crowd was bananas just anticipating his next sequences of his moves. My friend Kenny Hutch may have had 40, somebody said he had 37, he could have had 50 but none of that mattered. It wasn't about Pearl's 55 points, it was about how electrifyingly effective he was with cats trying to get at him. It was similar to how Pearl handled the feared Georgetown Hoya press defense later in the year in a Big East game at the Garden. Gene Smith kept trying to apply pressure and Pearl bodied him and the rest of the Hoya's on national television. By 1983 I'd seen a lot of great players in Harlem, Joe Hammond, Artie Green, Gary Springer and Steve Burt but I'd never seen a show like the one Pearl put on that night in King Towers. It was memorable.