When the Garden Was Eden

The late 1960s and early 1970s, in New York City and America 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.

Harvey Araton has followed the Knicks, old and new, for decades—first as a teenage fan, then as a young sports reporter with the New York Post, and now as a writer and columnist for the New York Times. When the Garden Was Eden is the definitive account of the New York Knicks in their vintage pomp. With measured prose and shoe-leather reporting, Araton relives their most glorious triumphs and bitter rivalries, and casts light on a team all but forgotten outside of pregame highlight reels and nostalgic reunions at the Garden.