Andrew Kuo never practiced tai chi with the elders on the Little Flower basketball court, but for the two decades of calling the Lower East Side his stomping grounds, the multi-disciplinary artist considers the Chinese octogenarians an indelible presence in his own self-discovery.
“I’ve stolen their looks for sure,” he says. “Those eighty year old grandfathers, my style icons are those guys.”
Kuo has since left the Lower East Side for Brooklyn, but it’s a neighborhood dear to his heart; its impact can be felt and interpreted in his paintings, it's the foundation of his friendship with his Cookies Hoops podcast co-host Ben Detrick, and now it’s the inspiration for a basketball court at the Cherry Clinton Playground. Renovated in partnership with Common Practice and Project Backboard, the mural court is Kuo giving the neighborhood its flowers. Inspired by a picture he took of a flower display at a bodega on Rivington Street, the court is an interpretation of a memory that encapsulates the essence of New York City: “This city is about hoops as much as it is about bodegas.”
The undesignated neighborhood of Cherry Clinton, which dances between being absorbed into Lower East Side or Two Bridges depending on the age of the local you ask, is a quiet pocket of bodegas, tenements, public housing, and an assortment of niche businesses that Manhattan has largely placed on an endangered list (Guns N Roses guitarist Richard Fortus once called Two Bridges “the only neighborhood left in Manhattan that doesn’t have a Starbucks.” Still true in Cherry Clinton.). In the 1660s it was a cherry orchard. Then it sold for sixty dollars, which, ideally, must have been a lot of money in 1672, and the orchard was lost. George Washington had the first executive mansion on Cherry Street, which should beg the questions: Did this man have a life-long beef with cherry trees? And, where’s that book?
In the early 20th century the neighborhood was mostly comprised of Jewish, Italian, Irish, and Greek immigrants. In the 1960s it was the destination of Puerto Rican immigrants, then Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Guangdong, and finally begetting Fuzhou dialect speakers in the 1980s. Schools and houses of worship range from Catholic to Presbyterian to Buddhist. The public housing high rises of Alfred E. Smith Houses were built in the 1950s. Luther Vandross and Saturday Night Live alum Michael Che, each grew up there at some point. East of the Cherry Clinton Playground is the Vladeck Houses, while the high rises of LaGuardia senior housing are to the north. Walking around and working in Cherry Clinton, the neighborhood is low key to a point that it feels harmful and a betrayal to mention its under-the-radar status. Starbucks is always watching.
As we worked on the court (full disclosure: I’m a member of the Project Backboard install team), we’d be visited by boisterous Puerto Rican men who needed us to know they were legends on the court in the ’90s. We could ask anyone, but we always took their word for it. One of our team members even received an introduction to tai chi from the elders. No one in Cherry Clinton seemed interested in keeping secrets.
On Saturday July 29, Kuo and Detrick held their Cherry Clinton Classic at Cherry Clinton Playground.
The following is a phone interview with Andrew Kuo, recorded prior to the Knicks acquisition of Donte DiVencenzo. In a text regarding the seemingly prescient suggestion, Kuo has refuted all possibilities of being “Nostradunkus.”
Photos of Andrew Kuo by Sean Challenger
Did you have personal attachment to the Cherry Clinton Playground?
Absolutely. A thousand percent. I spent over two decades in the Lower East Side right out of school. I felt a part of that neighborhood. Canal Street has certainly blown up and the area of Cherry Clinton is not far behind. Being a part of that neighborhood and seeing it grow was the reason I was really interested in doing this court. I definitely have an emotional attachment to that place. It is home to me.
I used to walk by all the time on my way to the seaport or just bumming around. I’ve shot hoops on that court. It was in rough shape for a long time, so when the opportunity came up it was a big yes.
The design is far different than a lot of your more well known works. What was the inspiration?
Flowers have always been a motif of mine. During the pandemic when I was trapped in my apartment in the Lower East Side, I would paint flower paintings over and over on sheets of paper and sell them at affordable prices to people online. It was a way to keep my interactions going with the world.
A lot of my work surrounding the charts are floral and bodega flowers. Those specific flowers were from a photo taken, I think, in the middle of the pandemic, I believe. It was a bodega that had a little display. It was abstracted and flattened from a photo I took at a bodega on Rivington. That motif goes throughout my work. It’s simple. We went through a few ideas that were complex or not complex, but we settled on this one because it is the simplest thing I wanted to show. Give the neighborhood their damn flowers!
From past interviews I’ve read that Simpsons yellow, the green grass and blues on a clear day in Yankee Stadium comprise some of your favorite colors and I see a lot of those present here, in addition to some vibrant basketball orange. I was on the install team and I wondered if I was painting some of your favorite colors into the surface?
[Laughs.] I kind of run away from certain colors. I like to talk all the time about colors having personalities and senses of humor, like when you put them against each other. It’s sports-related, like uniforms. I think complimentary colors are funny. Red and blue is funny. Orange and green: funny. This carries through with the identity of sports designs. When we have tournaments there they’ll really pop. I gravitate towards a certain yellow and a certain blue and those are in there for sure. They are certainly personal.
There’s several high rises surrounding the park and I’m wondering if you thought about the views from those windows?
For sure! Yes! Definitely! Especially for the Chinese community, and you know, in designing something I didn’t want to complicate it too much. I’m the son of immigrants. My parents were immigrants from Taiwan. Just being a part of the Chinese community down there, it was important for me to make something that someone could look at and not identify as art or as an idea about painting. It had to be something you’d look out your window and think “it kinda looks like flowers, but I’m not sure.” It wasn’t realistic on purpose. I hope they can look down and think “hey, that looks bright. Maybe I should play basketball and shoot around this week.”
Those beckoning colors.
Of course, working with the Parks Department we can’t get political or too edgy. But that’s never my intent with work. There’s huge ideas out there and there’s edges you can step close to, but I generally really enjoy including the viewer. If the viewer has a basketball, come shoot around.
Some of your previous works have included a key to the color work. Is one attached to this work?
It’s coming. As you know, there’s red dots in certain locations. I wanted to make it a map. A wink to information. Locations on the court. Like hot spots. He’s heating up from the corner. I wanted people to be drawn to these dots. If I hit it from this dot, that's game. Double or nothing from the purple dot. I will be making a print with a key with how all those dots correspond to memories and thoughts I have. Basically like poetry. Those dots were intentionally put there for a little inside thought of mine that I will be writing down. The print will hopefully be available soon.
Your work has been numbers and data-influenced, does that still apply here?
The chart work is roughly about numbers. There’s no literal numbers in there. It’s usually in the form of vague writing. For example, me and my buddy at Cookies, Ben Detrick, we did a book about basketball [The Joy of Basketball; Abrams Books] that’s full of charts, but there’s no stats in it at all. Most Loveable Guy. Most Hateable Guy. The Guy Who Collects Linkin Park Vinyl. It is a play on numbers and I take liberty sometimes, but it is intentionally vague, but has the language of what everyone knows of.
Does this mural court have a name?
I believe I called it Lower East Side Flowers.
There’s often a lot of whimsy in your art names.
I don’t like to leave things untitled. There’s always an opportunity to do something there.
Earlier talking about comical colors, it has me wondering if there’s NBA jersey colors throughout the years that you’ve found funny?
The Thunder rebrand from the Sonics was amazing, right? Conceptually they are called the Thunder, but there’s no sound or lightning. I know the Warriors already had the lightning bolt. It’s such a wonderful idea. The Thunder. But when you see the logo and the uniforms, it’s like is this just red white and blue? It’s almost like they had the yips. It’s like the Nets [rebrand], no one will be mad about black and white. Yeah, but no one is going to be happy about this either.
[Laughs.]
I think those are funny but funny as in enjoying stuff… I think the Knicks orange and blue is hilarious. They are a hilarious team. Red and yellow of the Hawks is particularly cool to me. Especially how hot Atlanta is. The Utah Jazz is fantastic. I know the Jazz moved from New Orleans, but Salt Lake City and the ice blue; those are beautiful colors and funny.
The Nuggets don’t mean anything, so they are funny in a womp-womp way. I wish the Nuggets were just gold. Shouldn’t they just be gold?
When they had more yellow in their jerseys in the Carmelo and JR Smith days it was a little bit more blue sky and gold.
Yeah, they had those alternates, right? The bright yellow alternates. Kenneth Faried baby.
I once worked with a writer who had a theory that no team could ever win in teal. The color lacked the strength to inspire greatness.
I love this idea. Is that shots at executive Michael Jordan?
It was mostly attacking the Cavs teal wave colorway in the early-2000s.
To their point, the Spurs’ most wonderful combination is that teal, pink, and black, right? But during their whole run they didn’t really do it up. They were just black and silver. Same with the Heat, they’ve always had a little bit of teal. They brought it out a bit, but got hammered in the Finals twice. So… it might be the case.
If that’s the case with teal, it might also apply to orange and blue. The Mets and the Knicks. How do you get fired up looking at orange?
[Laughs.] On that topic, what do the Knicks need in free agency?
Wings. Josh Hart. Donte DiVencenzo would be amazing. I think they just need wings. Maybe a scorer, but I would run it back. I think this team is OK. If they made a wholesale move for another prominent player it just changes the dynamic. I’m a Julius Randle fan. He’s affordable and he’s good. He’s waiting for a better player to join him. But you can’t get better by trading all your other good players. You’re just kind of treading water at that point.
Knicks fans are always dancing around keep or drop Randle.
It’s so funny how we value players like John Starks and Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason as lore because they were fiery and tough and mean. Julius Randle is all those things. He’s an All-NBA player. Somehow along the way the fans got soft.
[Laughs.]
Randle is who we want, guys! “Well, look at him yelling at his teammates.” Yeah, we want that! What are we doing, right? We don’t want a bunch of Andrea Bargnanis. This is Knicks culture. “What else does he do?” Well, he’s an All-NBA player. There’s that, twice in four years. I also appreciate him because he wanted to come here. Turns out MSG is not a free agent destination. He was the one guy who would play for a discount. I like him quite a bit.
What currently is bringing you joy in basketball?
Oh man. The draft. It’s my favorite part of sports. Hope is always the story. I am thrilled to see Wembanyama and Chet Holmgrem drop at the same time. That is going to, at the very least, be fascinating to talk about, if not change the complexion of the league. I have doubts about it. Shout out to Bol Bol. If those three guys can start playing that would be amazing. Also, the idea of Zion maybe switching teams is exciting. I’m a Zion apologist.
Are you excited for the Cherry Clinton Classic on this court?
Yes. It is awesome. Not to get too hyperbolic about it, but me and my great friend Ben do this pod [Cookies Hoops] and we know each other so well. To see everybody in our community, from middle aged dudes to twenty year old kids come out and ball and chill together, take a photo together, is real New York City life-affirming. I love it.