Talk Bronx New York

A playground and a street were named for Hilton White on Saturday. White’s son Derrick, above, and his protégés attended

The small patch of concrete in the South Bronx features slides and swing sets, along with a large fountain where neighborhood youngsters frolic happily through the spray. But the basketball hoops, and the legendary coach and recreational leader who once presided over them, have vanished, part of the ever-changing demographics of this gritty neighborhood.

But every once in a while, some local residents say, the deep baritone of the unforgettable Hilton White can be heard echoing across the old playground, and his muscular, 6-foot-3 frame can be seen stalking the former sideline. For it was here — on a small concrete playground near the intersection of East 163rd Street and Cauldwell Avenue — that the locally renowned community leader and coach taught some of New York City’s greatest 1960s and 1970s basketball players (like the former N.B.A. star Nate Archibald) how to become both outstanding basketball players and responsible adults.

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          After four years at Rutgers, Kia Vaughn will play for the Liberty this season

 Every day of school for four years, Kia Vaughn would get off the subway from the Bronx at Penn Station and walk past Madison Square Garden on her way down 33rd St. to St. Michael Academy. The small all-girls school with a gym that has a low ceiling and concrete columns throughout the court is where Vaughn’s basketball dreams began.

Those dreams have come true as the 6-4 center now calls the Garden home.

“It’s a big leap,” Vaughn said yesterday of going from being one of the city’s top high school players to a first-round selection (eighth overall) by her hometown Liberty in last month’s WNBA draft. “It’ll be an inspiration, I hope.” Read more..

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Virginia-bound guard China Crosby ran the point for the West team, which beat the East, 69-68, on Wednesday night on the campus of the University of Miami

Most high-school hoops stars view the McDonald’s All-American Game as a chance to be on television, a few minutes in the limelight. Not China Crosby. The Manhattan Center girls’ basketball star called her days down in Coral Gables, Fla., “a lesson learned.”

“It’s not just about basketball,” Crosby said. “We had people telling us, ‘Just don’t get a big head about the game – remember where you came from.’” Read more..

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Boys don’t cry? Tell that to Kemba Walker.

The freshman guard at the University of Connecticut couldn’t help but get emotional after the Huskies punched their ticket to the Final Four on Saturday night after an 82-75 victory against No. 3 Missouri in the West Regional final in Glendale, Ariz.

“I can’t lie to you, after the game I actually — I kind of did cry,” the Bronx resident said. “I know tears came out of my eyes, because I never thought I would get this far. We went to the Final Four now. I’m happy.” Read more..

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Cynthia “Ceez” Keteku, 18, of the Bronx, at the Chelsea headquarters of Urban Word

It was a rainy Friday evening in Chelsea, and nobody wanted to go home, preferring instead to spit poems from the depths of their tortured teenage souls.

 The finals of the New York Knicks Poetry Slam Program were in four days, and a handful of high school poets from around New York City had gathered at the headquarters of Urban Word, a literary arts organization for young people, to cheer Tia-Moné Llopiz as she cried out again in eloquent anguish over her mother’s death.

They needed to hear Cynthia Keteku, known as Ceez, come to grips with her girlfriend’s dumping her for a boy. Read more..

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