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Tell me about that. What was that like?

I think it was Ned Irish or somebody, I forgot who, who decided on doing the Garden. The first time, the first games, City College was playing Stanford, and Stanford had Hank Luizetti, the first guy to come east with the one-handed shot. I know people are thinking there may be something peculiar about that, it can't be true. How do you do that one-handed? He used to get them in. And Brooklyn College was booked to play Cathedral because there were a couple of games in the afternoon. I remember it was the first games at Madison Square Garden.

Ever?

The first college basketball games. There weren't any pro games at the Garden. The first basketball games at Madison Square Garden. I'm sure there were no others. So I remember that I got into the game towards the end, and I went to the foul line, and I heard the announcer saying, “Shooting for Brooklyn, Foner, number whatever.” I felt like the world ended. To this day I don't know if I made the shot, because it was kind of a blinding thing, that kind of thing, that's all I remember.

This is the old Garden on 48th Street.

the old Garden, yes. It's a great story. I played in the first basketball game at Madison Square Garden.

It's a great story.

In 1934.

So at what point did you start becoming more political, aware of politics or what was going on with you?

I think that by '33, the second year of basketball, I knew I'm not going to finish it because I knew I wasn't good enough and I didn't like it, other things were happening, and I was going to become more of a student. I think a lot of other things began to happen and I began to know other people. So I was slowly moving out of that, and then in '34, my brother Jack was then teaching in the evening session at City College and got me a job from 2:00 to 6:00 in the evening session office of City College. So I could arrange my schedule in the morning and go from there into City College and work there, and then go home at night. By then I was already beginning to meet people who were progressive, political kinds of things. Then after that I sort of became involved at home in Boro Park and knowing people at the college, and