Madison Square Garden, also known as The Garden and abbreviated MSG, is a multi-purpose arena in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The arena has its own television station and bills itself as The World's Most Famous Arena. The event arena is primarily used for sporting events (boxing, basketball, ice hockey) and concerts.
May 31, 1879: First MSG opened, Madison Ave. and 26th Street
June
16, 1890: Second MSG opened, Madison Ave. and 26th Street
1925 Dec
15: Third MSG opened, Eighth Avenue and 50th Street
14 Feb 1968:
Fourth MSG opened
First MSG 1874–1890 Fifth Avenue and 26th
Street
The site at 26th Street and Madison Avenue was owned by the
Vanderbilt family, who used it as a waiting room for passengers on their
railroad, the New York and Harlem Railroad. When the depot was moved to
Grand Central Terminal in 1871, P. T. Barnum leased the old building.
When Barnum's The Greatest Show on Earth exhibition turned a profit, he
began looking for a permanent location for his spectacular show.
Barnum opened "The New York Hippodrome" on April 30, 1874, which later
became Madison Square Garden. It was the largest amusement building ever
built, seating more than 10,000. The cost of construction was $150,000.
The lavish productions shown at the Hippodrome set the standard for the
future spectacular, high-quality performances associated with the Barnum
name. In 1875, Patrick S. Gilmore, a noted bandmaster who composed the
song When Johnny Comes Marching Home, rented the building from Barnum
and named it Gilmore's Garden. The landscape gardener John Thornhall
planted ferns and trees and had fountains laid out - like in a garden,
because the house had no roof. He even made sure that electricity was
put on. Various sports activities took place, such as fencing,
weightlifting, club and cannonball juggling, wrestling and cycling, as
shown in a drawing. An engraving shows the riders on a wooden track with
spectators in an open grandstand, on and off the track, people seated at
tables and a chapel inside the track. Eventually, Gilmore's Garden was
renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt after the
nearby square or park, and reopened on May 31, 1879. Track and bike
races were originally supposed to take place here. On February 12, 1879,
the first artificial ice rink in North America opened in the Garden. The
garden was roofless, hot in summer and freezing in winter.
Second
MSG 1890–1925 Fifth Avenue and 26th Street
William Henry Vanderbilt
formed a syndicate with other financiers consisting of J.P. Morgan,
Andrew Carnegie, James Stillman and William Waldorf Astor. The latter
had the first garden demolished in July 1889 and commissioned star
architect Stanford White to design a new building. The "second" Madison
Square Garden cost $3 million and opened on June 6, 1890. It was modeled
on the Moorish style of Seville Cathedral. At 32 stories at Madison
Square Park, it was the second tallest building in the city. The
Garden's main hall was the largest in the world, measuring 200 × 350
feet (61 × 110 m), with fixed seating for 8,000 people and standing room
for thousands more. There was a 1,200-seat theater, a concert hall that
could seat 1,500 people, the city's largest restaurant and there was
cabaret on the roof garden. Still, Madison Square Garden II was
unsuccessful. No longer willing to "throw good money after bad," the
syndicate of investors, men of immense wealth, sold the Garden II to a
real estate company in 1911.
Boxing promoter Tex Rickard proposed
to the Garden's owner that they have a full season of boxing matches
every Friday night, followed by a summer swim season. He would organize
boxing matches in all classes as well as title fights. Rickard told them
that he could bring not just some but all boxers to the Garden's hall.
Trusting Rickard's plans, the owners of Madison Square Garden gave him a
10-year lease, concessions and all on July 20, 1920 for $300,000 a year.
This was supported by a sub-lease agreement with John Ringling, the
circus impresario and mainstay of the Garden. Rickard's work began
August 1, although Governor Alfred E. Smith did not appoint the boxing
commission and licensing committee until August 12. Rickard's first
boxing match, held under New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC)
laws, would be on September 17, 1920 at Madison Square. In addition,
Rickard's plan for the Garden included a remodeling of the building to
increase seating capacity to a total of 13,000, and converting the
massive amphitheater into an indoor pool during the summer months. So he
wanted to make the Garden profitable when no boxing matches were being
held. His plans were realized.
The indoor swimming pool was the
highlight of the summer of 1921 and a marvel of modern technology. The
pool was tiled white, 250 feet long, 110 feet wide, and held 1.5 million
gallons of water at a depth of 3 feet to 15 feet. At the far end of the
pool was a waterfall with a height of 25 feet (7.6 m). There was
recreational swimming, as well as amateur and professional swimming
competitions.
In addition to boxing and the indoor pool, Rickard
has also been successful in using the MSG for a number of other events.
The first party convention of the Democrats took place here in 1924 as
well as the 6-day races, which reached their climax under him. Through
charity events, Rickards also wanted to get women involved in the sport,
particularly boxing, thereby improving the image of the sport.
The New York Life Insurance Company, which owned mortgages on the
building, canceled the mortgage in 1916, urging its end. The second
building was the last actually left in Madison Square. It was demolished
in 1926 and replaced by the New York Life Building designed by Cass
Gilbert and dedicated in 1928.
Architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White had been commissioned to
build a new Madison Square Garden. Stanford White had designed a
Moorish-style building; the tallest tower was modeled on the bell tower
of Seville Cathedral, the Giralda. White commissioned his friend, the
sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to create a suitable figure for the
spire. They agreed on a "Diana", Roman goddess of the hunt, with bow and
arrow. The sculpture was 18 feet (5.5 m) tall and weighed 1,800 pounds
(816.5 kg). It was meant to be a weathervane and rotate, but it didn't.
In addition, the architect and artist decided that it was too big for
the tower. In September 1892, this Diana was removed and taken to
Chicago, where it adorned the dome of the Farm Building at the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition.
The second Diana, also known as
"Diana on the Tower", was scaled to 13 feet (3.96 m) and made in
lightweight hammered copper sheet and gilded. Her athletic figure was a
perfect complement to a venue that hosted sporting events as well as
other types of entertainment. During the "Gilded Age" of New York City,
when it was scandalous for a lady to show her ankles in public, this
nude Diana was quite shocking and was the talk of the town. With a total
tower height of 347 feet (105.8 meters), it became the tallest point in
New York City, taller than the Statue of Liberty. Diana was the first
statue to be electrically lit at night. With her gilded, sleek form, she
gleamed in the sun throughout the day and could be seen along the Hudson
River and in New Jersey.
Third MSG 1925–1968 8th Avenue and 50th
Street
The location of the successor building shifted further north,
towards Westside. Groundbreaking for the construction of the MSG III
took place on January 9, 1925 on Eighth Avenue (Manhattan) between 49th
and 50th Street. It was designed by theater architect Thomas W. Lamb;
the construction costs amounted to 4.75 million US dollars. The building
was erected in 249 days by boxing promoter Rickard and dubbed "The House
that Tex built." The arena was 200 × 375 feet (61 × 114 m), with
three-tier seating and a maximum capacity of 18,496 spectators for
boxing matches.
Fourth MSG 1968 to present 7th Avenue and 33rd
Street
The current MSG building was constructed beginning in 1963
over the tracks of the Pennsylvania Station, whose "Beaux Arts" style
building designed by architects McKim, Mead, and White was demolished in
1964 for this purpose. The complex today consists of a congress center,
cinema, theater and sports field.
In July 2013, the New York City
Council, as the owner, voted for a final ten-year lease extension with
the operators. During this time, Madison Square Garden will have to
relocate again to allow for the post-modernization of Pennsylvania
Station below the stadium.
Sports
Both the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York
Rangers ice hockey team play their home games at the MSG. The MSG offers
space for 19,763 spectators at Knicks games and 18,200 spectators at ice
hockey games. The first two fights between boxing legends Muhammad Ali
and Joe Frazier took place there in 1971 and 1974.
six day race
In 1891, a six-day race was held at Madison Square Garden for the first
time. Initially, these races were only attended by individual riders –
usually male professional riders – who rode around a velodrome for
twelve hours a day from Monday to Saturday. Because of the Sunday rest,
the races were limited to six days. Whoever had completed the most miles
during this time was the winner. In the first race in the Garden, this
was the American Bill "Plugger" Martin with 1466.7 miles driven. In the
years that followed, a six-day individual race was held annually at the
Garden.
In 1894 the driver Albert Schock is said to have finished
the race in such a bad physical condition that no organizer dared to
hold a six-day race the following year. In 1896 the American Teddy Hale
started the solo six-day race in Madison Square Garden and won with 1910
miles and eight laps ahead of 30 competitors. About his condition after
the end of the race it was said: "He looked like a ghost. His face was
like the white face of a corpse and he stared in front of himself, his
eyes terribly fixed […] His mind was no longer there on the track, he
had lost all signs of life and self possession.” (“Er looked like a
ghost. His face was as white as a corpse's face, and he was staring
straight ahead with a horribly fixed gaze. [...] His mind was off track,
he had lost all signs of life and self-control." ) As he himself later
said, "I won, but I gave up 10 years of my life for a few thousand
dollars." Herald wrote of an "inhumanity in the name of sport".
The following year, the President of the New York Board of Health,
Michael C. Murphy, tried to stop the race because it was "an animal
event that no white man should watch" and in which the athletes were
subjected to inhumane exertion be. The doctor who examined German-born
driver Charles Miller after his win last year said he was in good
physical condition. However, his advantage over the other drivers is
said to have been so great that he was able to sleep for several hours
in between. The 1898 race went ahead as planned, and Miller won again.
Six-day races with individual drivers proved increasingly
unattractive for spectators over the years. In order to generate
publicity, the promoters of the 1898 New Yorker leaked to the press that
drivers had gone insane from the inhuman exertion. Spectators wanted to
see for themselves, so Madison Square Garden was crowded the following
day. In the long run, however, there was no way to inspire the audience
in the individual competition. The following year, concerns about the
solo six-day race were also taken seriously, and the authorities decreed
that a driver could only drive twelve hours a day; the solution was
teams of two, with the condition that one of the two riders had to be on
the velodrome at all times.
Charles Miller won the first six-day
race with teams of two, together with Frank Waller, a native of Munich.
Since the two-man races were first held in Madison Square Garden, the
track cycling discipline of two-man racing has since been called Madison
or Americaine.
The annual six-day race at the Garden was a
popular social event: "[...] where men and women, rich and poor, black
and white rubbed elbows, listened to the latest jazz bands and
songwriters, and screamed encouragment to their heroes". Between 1899
and 1961, 70 six-day races were held at Madison Square Garden.
Many well-known musicians have performed at the MSG; most often Billy
Joel, who has performed here more than 110 times. In 2010, the German
music band Rammstein performed here. For concerts, the Garden offers
space for up to 20,000 spectators.
Every February, the MSG hosts
the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, the oldest dog show in the world.
The Garden is also rented out for business and private parties; In 2004
it was the scene of the Republican Convention.
Trivia
Occasionally, Madison Square Garden serves as a location for films; in
Godzilla, the giant lizard lays its eggs here, which is why the MSG is
destroyed by two rockets in the film. The film Highlander - There Can
Only Be One (1986) starts here. In 1962, Marilyn Monroe sang her
birthday song Happy birthday, Mr. President to President Kennedy on the
third MSG.