NEW YORK RENS MEMORIAL BENCH AND MARKER CAMPAIGN

BACKGROUND

Formed 100 years ago, in 1923, the New York Rens were the first Black-owned, all-Black, fully professional basketball team in history. This Harlem-based squad won 85% of its games with 150-game schedules from 1923 to 1949, the equivalent of an NBA team winning 70 games a season for 25 years in a row.

Yet, there was nothing in Harlem to celebrate this legendary Hall of Fame team! Until now!

WHAT WE'RE DOING

Funding from this campaign will enable the proper acknowledgment of the legendary New York Rens basketball team in Harlem, their home locale, through the construction and placement of a New York Rens Commemorative Bench and Historical Marker in the median pedestrian sanctuary at the intersection of Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and West 138th Street where that ballroom once stood.

The Black Fives Foundation (BFF) is working closely with the Manhattan Borough President's Office, the NYC Department of Transportation, and the NYC Public Design Council to bring this initiative to life in Harlem. We will need to fund the design, architectural layout, materials, and construction as well as the ongoing maintenance and insurance.

Fans and supporters of this project come not only from the surrounding neighborhood and Harlem community but also from around the country and the world. We all want the New York Rens Walk of Fame to be a lasting, educational, inspirational, and celebratory commemoration possible as a local, national, and worldwide historical destination.

YOUR HELP

To achieve this epic memorial, we will need your help. Please make a generous donation today.

COST

This project has a preliminary cost estimate of $100,000, which we aim to raise over the next 10 months. To make this vision a reality, we need financial support through generous donations from individuals such as you, as well as through the generosity of community organizations and corporate donors.

Please donate. This is your chance to Make History Now! Thanks so much!

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About The Black Fives Foundation
The Greenwich, CT-based Black Fives Foundation (BFF) is a public charity that is tax-exempt under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to BFF are tax deductible in the U.S.A. under Section 170 of the Code. Our Federal Tax ID # is 46-1925488. A copy of our IRS tax exemption determination letter is available upon request. Our mission is to inspire excellence by preserving, teaching, and honoring the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball, a period known as the Black Fives Era that lasted from the early 1900s to 1950 when the NBA signed its first Black players. We advocate for expanding Black history education to amplify and include this important history, utilizing nearly 1,000 related artifacts in our historical archive as well as a portfolio of related intellectual property and other difference-making initiatives. For more information about the Black Fives Foundation and this important history, please visit www.blackfives.org.

New York Rens Memorial Bench and Marker, Harlem

A Bench On The Boulevard Median To Memorialize The Legendary New York Rens And Their History