Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.), photographed by Richard Avedon at 61st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, May 1963.

Uptown to downtown: playing basketball at 109th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues (*top*) and at the corner of 11th Street and Avenue A (*above*).

“When you win in New York City the people never forget you”: New York Knicks star guard Walt “Clyde” Frazier in East Harlem (*top*) and with his Rolls-Royce on the Brooklyn waterfront (*above*).

Knicks vs. Lakers: New York’s Willis Reed and Los Angeles’s Wilt Chamberlain fight for a tip-off in the N.B.A. finals, 1970.

From the streets of the Lower East Side (*above*) to the N.B.A.: the Knicks’ Jerry Lucas, Frazier, Reed, Phil Jackson, and Bill Bradley celebrate their championship victory, 1973 (*top*).

Knicks vs. Celtics: New York’s Dave DeBusschere shoots over Boston’s Paul Silas during the N.B.A. playoffs, 1973.

Whatever it takes: a New York City pickup game, circa 1950s (*top*); Frazier shoots a layup against the Boston Celtics, 1973 (*above*).

New York’s Got Game

Walk south on Sixth Avenue toward West Third Street at any time of the day or night and you’ll be hard-pressed not to see a basketball game in play. It’s a perpetual motion—has been for decades—throughout the city

Basketball as we know it began in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891, “but its real history is a New York story,” writes Whitney W. Donhauser in the foreword to a book of photographs whose publication accompanies next week’s opening of “City/Game: Basketball in New York,” at the Museum of the City of New York. “What makes New York the mecca of basketball? Is it [its] legendary playgrounds? The world-famous arenas? The hype? All that is part of it,” Knicks star Walt “Clyde” Frazier writes, “but mostly New York is the mecca because of the people.” Here, a selection of images from the book chronicles the sport’s connection with the city that gave us Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Chris Mullin. —Julia Vitale

Photos: © the Richard Avedon Foundation; New York City Parks Photo Archive; Geoffrey Biddle; Walter Iooss Jr./N.B.A.E.; Bettmann/Getty Images; George Kalinsky; George Kalinsky; Geoffrey Biddle; George Kalinsky; Morris Huberland/N.Y.P.L.; Dick Raphael/NBAE/Getty Images