This past May, I received upsetting news from my colleague Patrick Redford, whose flight had just landed: A beloved New York City landmark lay in ruin. The outdoor basketball court in Terminal 5 of John F. Kennedy International Airport had turned into an active construction site. A reasonable person might ask why there was a basketball court in Terminal 5 of John F. Kennedy International Airport to begin with. The answer to this question is partial, but will require those who loved this court best to fill in the gaps.
A handful of times in the last year, whenever I got off the AirTrain that links the subway to the airport, I’d peer out the tinted window and see it: a blacktop court, white painted lines, the words "SAFE REFUGE AREA" printed across one half, and a moveable hoop set up on either end. On one side of the court was the kind of sloped, looping road that seemed, like an Escher drawing, to encircle the airport forever without repeating itself. On the other side were parking spots designated for Customs and Border Protection. If those staffers were breaking each other’s ankles after long hours of confiscating illicit seeds and nuts, they never did so while I was watching.
Earlier photos from 2019, including one taken by a Reddit user and one taken by the disgraced novelist Sherman Alexie, show the court in decent shape. By 2023, when my editor and I started to take photos of it during trips to the airport, the surface was coated with whitish water marks and pitted with potholes—but still playable.
It's hard not to be charmed by the hypothetical action unfolding on this court. Travelers in squishy slides get in a quick game of HORSE during a layover, then throw on their neck pillows and catch a connection. A pilot pulls a battleworn Spalding out of their carry-on to decompress with some free throws. Flight attendants ask a rival airline’s squad to run half-court 3-on-3. Maybe there's even a tournament. Airports do not otherwise offer any nourishment as rich as hooping. Too many minutes of my life have been spent sipping a seltzer off a hightop in the kind of bar where David Brooks might spent $78, and I'd instantly trade all those minutes for a single, pure transition layup in the cool shadow of Airbuses streaking overhead.
Despite a stretch of unfriendly fence, the court still seemed accessible enough. Once, after dropping someone off at the airport, I navigated the mystifying airport ramps until I got as close to the basketball court as possible, scouted the closest available parking, and deeply contemplated the basketball in my trunk. I’d gotten as far as deciding which hoop I’d shoot on. But better judgment prevailed: I nixed “brown guy trespasses on airport property to troubleshoot a broken jumper” as a viable course of action.
This city has a way of stashing basketball courts in strange places—there are courts close enough to highway ramps that you feel as though you’re sucking in car exhaust after a fast break—but even for New York, this location was strange. If I wanted to play there, it seemed prudent to go through official channels. Last August, I reached out to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport, and was referred to JetBlue, the airline that operates that terminal. After I eagerly requested all available information about the history and present use of the court, a JetBlue communications staffer met me with a more appropriate level of enthusiasm:
JFK Terminal 5 does have a basketball court for use by JetBlue crewmembers and airport employees, but it is not open to the public. Let me know if you’re still interested in additional information, but I do not think a visit would be possible.
Despite reaching out for that additional information a few times over the next several months, I was informed that there was in fact no more information. I couldn't visit or be put in touch with the JetBlue crew members and airport employees who play there regularly. I could not learn if employees from other cities play there when work takes them to New York. I could not learn about a possible intramural basketball tournament there. Each successive time I passed the court, it looked worse off. Was ball no longer life for the citizens of Terminal 5? Were they neglecting this precious recreational space tucked into a major international airport?
It was only this past June, while attending a wedding at a hotel attached to the airport, that I looked out the window and confirmed its demise with my own eyes. Realizing that nothing remained of the court except a poignant scrap of baseline, I tried again to get an answer from JetBlue, which then referred me to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but I've yet to hear back from them about the new construction there. I'm also in touch with the Association of Flight Attendants, but at this point, I am opening the call to the public. Anyone with fond memories of playing on this court, or any memories at all, should drop me a line. If flight attendants had a longstanding tradition of cooking TSA at Terminal 5, I'd be delighted to preserve those memories for posterity.
