When the people of Milwaukee had the chance to renovate the Bucks’ basketball court, they chose to do something very avant-garde for a Midwestern city in the 1970s. They decided to use their public funds to commission Robert Indiana, an openly gay artist from Manhattan, to paint the floor of the Mecca. When the Bucks moved to the Bradley Center in 1988, they decided not to take their famous floor with them. So what happened to it? This is the story of how a Bucks fan discovered the floor being sold for scrap and worked with his friends and the artist — and took on serious credit card debt — to bring the iconic work back to life.

Can you imagine something like this happening in 2014?

Joe Stracci