A dream is born

Great moments in sports - those truly transcendent achievements - inspire us to achieve great things in our own lives.

It was just a few weeks after 9/11, and Lower Manhattan was reeling from the physical, financial and psychological impact. Philip Schwalb, a sports marketing veteran and basketball super-fan, was thinking back to a few month's earlier, when he'd driven from Manhattan to Springfield, Massachusetts to visit the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Remembering that experience, and wondering what could be done for his beleaguered city, Philip Schwalb had an inspired idea. Why not create a world-class sports attraction right here in New York City, the sports capital of the nation? Why not a venue dedicated not to a single sport, but to all sports? And why not Downtown, where it could become a cornerstone in the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan?

That inspiration became the vision. And today, with the steadfast help of business and political leaders, sports icons and the nation's premier official sports entities that vision is rising like a bright new star above New York's famed Canyon of Heroes. Like the legendary athletes it celebrates, the Sports Museum of America is poised to soar higher, further and faster than even the dreamer dreamed possible.