#Merge town buildings pictures full#
What’s on display now is a picture that needs a frame and a caption to tell the full story but demands your attention regardless. The purchase of the properties was completed, and the engineering work required was undertaken. Liston put his money behind his passion with a $200,000 donation of his own. The donors were some of the traditional sources for philanthropic work in New Brunswick, with both the Irving and McCain family foundations stepping up. The first phase was completed earlier this year when the first $1 million dollars of what is projected to be a $10 million undertaking was raised. Stephen’s and Canada’s role as a bridge between the roots of the sport and game today. The initial goal was simple: raise funds to buy the building that was home to the court and the building adjacent to it, with an eye toward preserving the historic floor and using the additional space to create an experience centre - a cross between a museum of basketball history and a living, breathing event space that would showcase St. 17, 1893.Īt this point the small group of locals who had been investigating the potential of the find as a passion project were joined by a group of local business leaders under the banner of Canada First Basketball to create a business plan and identify realistic long-term objectives. Stephen occurred two months earlier on Oct. Based on the clipping from the archives, the game in St. (Photo courtesy: Craig Young)Įventually it was determined that the site of what had previously been considered the oldest existing basketball court in Paris had hosted its first game in December of 1893. It occurred to someone that given the known history of the building - it had been a recruitment centre during the First World War, the site of New Brunswick’s first pharmacy, and a dance hall subsequent to being a YMCA - that some research might yield something interesting.Ī view of the world’s oldest basketball court in St. And when the owners came in after the fire to inspect for damages and pulled up the carpet in what was an upstairs storage room, they found a well-preserved hardwood floor. The site of the first ever game - where Canadian James Naismith introduced it to his students at the International YMCA Training Academy - has long since been integrated into the campus of Springfield College, as an example.īut the building in St. “That’s part of the reason it’s the oldest court - a lot of the other buildings burned down.” Stephen’s - and Canada’s - place in basketball history, told me on a recent tour of the site. “It was moments from going up in smoke,” Tom Liston, the New Brunswick-born, Toronto-based tech investor and all-around basketball fanatic who has been one of the driving forces in securing St. Working theories are that it could have been a patron coming home from a nearby bar being careless with a cigarette butt or some kids creating mischief and sparking one of the bags of donated clothes routinely left at the rear of the building.īut what kept the flames from engulfing the aged structure was the quick response of the town’s volunteer firefighters and a benign wind. No one knows who or what started the fire. The structure was saved and the damage mostly superficial.
Stephen, N.B., the weather was favourable for the volunteer firefighters called to battle the rapidly advance blaze in the old brick building at 8 King St.