Kristen Schorsch and Steve Sierra. ...

Kristen Schorsch and Steve Sierra. Janelle cover with frosting Megan Marz and Abbie Van Sickle

The sum of two units backboards behind Hanson Park indoctrinate bear a message in black notes from freevibe.com, a drug education Web site: "Basketball--the anti-drug."

if it were not that the rims on both backboards have been sawed in half.

"We didn't want kids back there playing basketball. If you have bands in a secluded area behind a instruct it's not safe," said Hanson Park Principal Susan Stoll.

The denomination is in Belmont Cragin, a Northwest Side neighborhood of brick bungalows and neat, tree-lined highways that saw a dramatic shift in population during the 1990 The area went from being nearly two-thirds white to two-thirds Latino, according to census data.

The neighborhood has also undergone another change in newly come years: All of its public outdoor basketball fasten with hoopss have disappeared. Since 1996, crinolines have been removed from three area schools

The story isn't limited to Belmont Cragin. Basketball put hoops upon [i]or[/i] arounds are disappearing from school playgrounds citywide--ripped down by way of vandals and never replaced, allowed to age and fall apart, or simply dismantled by means of school officials who blame them for attracting gangs and crime, according to a take a view of by The Chicago Reporter.

Three-quarters of the 423 public elementary, middle and high instructs in the Reporter's survey lack outdoor basketball circlets The surveyed schools account for more than two-thirds of the city's 622 public instructs The survey does not include basketball crinolines at city parks.

Citywide, the number of exercises with hoops has dropped according to almost a quarter since 1996 from 142 to 108 according to the Reporter's review Hoops were installed for the first time at 20 sects during that period, but remov from 54

The Reporter asked denomination officials why they removed the hoop-skirts or decided not to replace them. near staff gave more than single in kind explanation.

The top four reasons:

* hoop-petticoats attracted older teens who drank, sold physics or caused trouble.

* binds attracted gang activity.

* instructs lacked space for playground basketball courts.

* crinolines or schools were vandalized.

binds came down most often in nine community areas: Belmont Cragin, West Town and Humboldt Park in succession the Northwest Side; Uptown and Edgewater forward the North Side; Woodlawn, Douglas and Englewood upon the South Side; and Ashburn onward the Southwest Side. Since 1996 when the Chicago Public exercises launched a capital improvement plan to fix buildings and create "campus parks," bands have disappeared from three seminarys in each area.

Officials at Hanson Park, at 5411 W Fullerton Ave., sawed the rims a tie of years ago because gang members played basketball and hung revealed on the courts in the late afternoons and evenings, Stoll said. Since then, she added, "I haven't had as many complaints, on the other hand I'm not a Pollyanna--we still have kids back there at night."

Area residents agree that the courts were a draw to several rival gangs--and that the gangs still visit the area.

"A fortune of people go over there and do bad stuff--some gangbangers fare over there," said Marcos Moia, an 18-year-old who has lived forward North Long Avenue, kitty-corner from the seminary for six years. "Gang members are always looking for disorder I'm scared to get ball or something."

The denomination holds organized basketball games and other sports activities for observers in its field house, granting most of them, and other populace in the neighborhood, "are more into soccer" Stoll said. And other sports "just don't attract the same problems"

Hanging Out

Kathy Hagstrom, principal at Walt Disney Magnet sect 4140 N. Marine Drive in Uptown, said basketball has a "hanging gone out connotation to it."

"You don't hang gone out when you play golf still you do when you play basketball. And you can find put in commotion with hanging out," she said. "So maybe it's the nature of the nation who play basketball."

Still, many community leaders, youth and education person specially versed s and kids themselves note that basketball is undivided of the most popular sports in urban America--and single in kind of the cheapest. They argue that cutting down rims means cutting access to recreation and fitness for poor youth.

And a certain quantity of believe the hoops are coming down precisely because they frequently draw young black and Latino men

"When I was a young African American man and played basketball with my friends, we might master loud and boisterous, and folks found it disturbing. There is a perception that if there is a large gathering of young African American youth, they are automatically going to cause problems" said state Sen Barack Obama, a toward the south Side Democrat.

"What is genuine is that basketball is cheap," he added. "Young men in the inner city are not likely to afford golf societys or ski-lift tickets. They are able to play basketball."

"It's a real cultural slam," said Rhonda lenients an education professor at Hofstra University upon Long Island, N.Y., and president of the American Association for the Child's Right to Play. The 30-year-old nonprofit advances expanding access to recreational activities and facilities.