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Most weekends, Craig Campanella heads out of his Jackson Heights apartment with a 25-lb foldable ladder strapped to his back and a gym bag filled with wire clippers, a wrench, a box cutter, a basketball — and a wealth of basketball nets.
He’ll head north, or south, or west until he gets to his destination, a park or playground where the hoops are bare. Campanella set a goal of replacing 25 nets this year, a target he surpassed on a recent Sunday at Thomas Noonan Playground in Sunnyside.
His passion project — his addiction to that satisfying swoosh when a basket is made — started years ago, when he and his wife were living in Harlem across from Morningside Park.
“There was a nice basketball court there, and I just noticed that they didn’t replace the nets when the nets would deteriorate, they’d go months without them being replaced,” he said. “And hoops without nets make me sad.”
Campanella buys the white nylon nets for $10.99 at Dick’s Sporting Goods, and meticulously scouts parks in Astoria, Long Island City and Elmhurst.
To him, adding nets is a small thing that greatly improves the experience of shooting hoops.
“It’s just a little thing that I feel like, all hoops should have nets,” Campanella said. “I figured, life’s been good to me, so I can spare the bucks and I can do it.”
Queens basketball league players enjoy a Sunday morning game at a Woodside park, May 31, 2026. Credit: Katie Honan/THE CITY
He arrived at 9 a.m. at the playground, where three people were already taking up shots at the two courts that had nets.
The feedback he gets is overwhelmingly positive. When he’s on the ladder, he gets a lot of “Bro, is this your job?” Campanella said.
His actual day job as a data manager has helped him as he looks to expand his net operation to 63 parks within six Queens community boards.
“I would love to put my eyeballs on every hoop in those six community boards this year, inventory them all, and replace as many nets as I can,” he said.
Through his work he’s also found four distinct hoop types around the borough’s parks, with varying degrees of difficulty in installing the nets. A recent experiment of adding a net with zip ties didn’t work, he found on a follow up visit.
A spokesperson for the Parks Department — which has a team of blacksmiths replacing broken rims — said they’re OK with New Yorkers putting up nets on any of the approximately 2,900 basketball hoops in city parks.
“We have some leagues who take it upon themselves to hang nets and we don’t have a problem with it,” Gregg McQueen told The City Reporter.
After putting up the nets, Campanella tells whoever’s around that it’s bad luck to miss on a new net, and kids and adults have fun taking a shot.
Rahi Miah, a 32-year-old software engineer from Sunnyside who’s been playing basketball since he was a teenager, took the first shot on one of the nets at Thomas Noonan. His second one went in.
Software engineer Rahi Miah plays basketball at a Woodside, Queens park three days a week, May 31, 2026. Credit: Katie Honan/THE CITY
“The sound is everything,” he said of the iconic swoosh.
“It’s probably the best sound you can hear when you’re shooting a basketball, so having the nets up and having them regularly maintained is a great thing to have for this community.”
Blocks away at Lawrence Virgilio Playground in Woodside, Campanella eyed two more denuded hoops, which required him to loop the net through the steel holes and tie with a knot, taking twice as long as others. They were hoops 27 and 28; his new goal for the year is installing 50 nets.
Players from a regular pickup basketball league stood on and waited, and then thanked him for improving the game.
“Putting nets on hoops isn’t going to necessarily solve the world’s problems,” Campanella said. “But it’s something I can do. It’s tangible. It makes me smile, and it makes other people in the park smile, and so I just do it.”
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The post Queens Apostle of the ‘Swoosh’ Restores Netless Rims in City Parks appeared first on The City Reporter.
