Madison Square Garden (1925)
Encyclopedia
Madison Square Garden was an indoor arena in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the third of that name. It was built in 1925 and closed in 1968, and was located on Eighth Avenue
Eighth Avenue (Manhattan)
Eighth Avenue is a north-south avenue on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, carrying northbound traffic. Eighth Avenue begins in the West Village neighborhood at Abingdon Square and runs north for 44 blocks through Chelsea, the Garment District, Hell's Kitchen's east end, Midtown and the...

 between 49th and 50th
50th Street (Manhattan)
50th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The street runs eastbound from 12th Avenue, across the full width of the island, ending at Beekman Place and carries the M50 bus line, which returns on 49th Street...

 Streets in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 on the site of the city's trolley car barns. It was the first Garden that was not located near Madison Square
Madison Square
Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Constitution.The focus of the square is...

. MSG III was the home of the New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...

 of the National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 as well as the New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...

 of the National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

, and also hosted numerous boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 matches, concerts, and many other events.

History

Ground breaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925. Designed by the noted theater architect Thomas W. Lamb
Thomas W. Lamb
Thomas White Lamb was an American architect, born in Scotland. He is noted as one of the foremost designers of theaters and cinemas in the 20th century.-Career:...

, it was built at the cost of $4.75 million in 249 days by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who assembled backers he called his "600 millionaires" to fund the project. The new arena was dubbed "The House That Tex Built." In contrast to the ornate towers of Stanford White
Stanford White
Stanford White was an American architect and partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a long series of houses for the rich and the very rich, and various public, institutional, and religious buildings, some of which can be found...

's second Garden
Madison Square Garden (1890)
Madison Square Garden was an indoor arena in New York City, the second by that name, and the second to be located at 26th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan...

, the exterior of MSG III was a simple box. Its most distinctive feature was the ornate marquee
Marquee (sign)
A marquee is most commonly a structure placed over the entrance to a hotel or theatre. It has signage stating either the name of the establishment or, in the case of theatres, the play or movie and the artist appearing at that venue...

 above the main entrance, with its seemingly endless abbreviations (Tomw., V/S, Rgrs, Tonite, Thru, etc.) Even the name of the arena was abbreviated, to Madison Sq. Garden.

The arena, which opened on December 15, 1925, was 200 feet (61 m) by 375 feet (114.3 m), with seating on three levels, and a maximum capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...

 of 18,496 spectators for boxing. It had poor sight lines, especially for hockey, and fans sitting virtually anywhere behind the first row of the upper deck could count on having some portion of the ice obstructed. The fact that there was poor ventilation and that smoking was permitted often led to a haze in the upper portions of the Garden.

In its history, Madison Square Garden III was managed by Rickard, General John Reed Kilpatrick, Ned Irish
Ned Irish
Edward S. "Ned" Irish was a basketball promoter and one of the key figures in popularizing professional basketball. He was the president of the New York Knicks from 1946 to 1974...

 and Irving Mitchell Felt. It was eventually replaced by the current Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

.

Boxing

Boxing was Madison Square Garden III's principal claim to fame. The first bout took place on December 8, 1925, a week before the arena's official opening. On January 17, 1941, 23,190 people witnessed Fritzie Zivic
Fritzie Zivic
Fritzie Zivic , born as Ferdinand Henry John Zivcich , was an American boxer.-Biography:...

's successful welterweight defense against Henry Armstrong
Henry Armstrong
Henry Jackson Jr. was a world boxing champion who fought under the name Henry Armstrong. He is universally regarded as one of the greatest fighters of all time by many boxing critics and fellow professionals.Henry Jr...

, still the largest crowd for any of the Gardens.

Hockey

The New York Rangers
New York Rangers
The New York Rangers are a professional ice hockey team based in the borough of Manhattan in New York, New York, USA. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League . Playing their home games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers are one of the...

, owned by the Garden's owner Tex Rickard, got their name from a play on words involving his name: Tex's Rangers. However, the Rangers were not the first NHL team to play at the Garden; the New York Americans
New York Americans
The New York Americans were a professional ice hockey team based in New York, New York from 1925 to 1942. They were the third expansion team in the history of the National Hockey League and the second to play in the United States. The team never won the Stanley Cup, but reached the semifinals...

 had begun play in 1925 – and in fact, officially opened the Garden by losing to the Montreal Canadiens 3-1 – and were so tremendously successful at the gate that Rickard wanted his own team as well. The Rangers were founded in 1926, playing their first game in the Garden on November 17, 1926, and both teams played at the Garden until the Americans suspended operations in 1942 due to World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. In the meantime, the Rangers had usurped the Americans' commercial success with their own success on the ice, winning three Stanley Cup
Stanley Cup
The Stanley Cup is an ice hockey club trophy, awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoffs champion after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Finals. It has been referred to as The Cup, Lord Stanley's Cup, The Holy Grail, or facetiously as Lord Stanley's Mug...

s between 1928 and 1940. The refusal of the Garden's management to allow the resurrection of the Americans after the war was one of the popular theories underlying the Curse of 1940
Curse of 1940
The Curse of 1940, also called Dutton's Curse, was a superstitious explanation for why the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League did not win the league's championship trophy, the Stanley Cup, from 1940 to 1994.-Popular theories:...

, which supposedly prevented the Rangers from winning the Stanley Cup again until 1994.

The New York Rovers
New York Rovers
The New York Rovers were a senior ice hockey team that was established in 1935. They played in the Eastern Hockey League as a farm team of the New York Rangers. The Rovers played alongside the Rangers in Madison Square Garden. They played in the Eastern League through 1947-48...

, a farm team of the Rangers, also played in the Garden on Sunday afternoons, while the Rangers played on Wednesday and Sunday nights.

The Circus

While the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is an American circus company. The company was started when the circus created by James Anthony Bailey and P. T. Barnum was merged with the Ringling Brothers Circus. The Ringling brothers purchased the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, but ran the circuses...

 had debuted at the second Garden in 1919, the third Garden saw large numbers of performances. The circus was so important to the Garden that when the Rangers played in the 1928 Stanley Cup Finals
1928 Stanley Cup Finals
-References & notes:* Podnieks, Andrew; Hockey Hall of Fame . Lord Stanley's Cup. Bolton, Ont.: Fenn Pub. pp 12, 50. ISBN 978-1-55168-261-7-See also:*1927–28 NHL season...

, the team was forced to play all games on the road, which did not prevent the Rangers from winning the series. The circus would continue to perform as often as three times daily throughout the life of the third Garden, repeatedly knocking the Rangers out of the Garden at playoff time.

The Circus Acrobatics included acts in the rings as well as on the high wire and trapeze. One dramatic act which was only performed in the Garden, and not taken on the road with the traveling Circus, involved Blinc Candlin, a Hudson, New York
Hudson, New York
Hudson is a city located along the west border of Columbia County, New York, United States. The city is named after the adjacent Hudson River and ultimately after the explorer Henry Hudson.Hudson is the county seat of Columbia County...

 fireman, who rode his antique 1880s High Wheel bicycle on the high wire every season for over two decades beginning in the 1910s and running well through the 1930s.

Basketball

The first professional basketball game was played in the 50th Street Garden on December 6, 1925, nine days before the Arena officially opened. It pitted the Original Celtics
Original Celtics
The Original Celtics were a barnstorming professional basketball team in the 1920s. There is no relation to the modern Boston Celtics. The Original Celtics are often credited with extending the reach of basketball across America and for establishing the importance of aggressive defensive play...

 against the Washington Palace Five
Washington Palace Five
The Washington Palace Five were an American basketball team based in Washington, D.C. that was a member of the American Basketball League....

; the Celtics won 35-31. The New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...

 debuted there in 1946, although if there was an important college game, they played in the 69th Regiment Armory
69th Regiment Armory
The 69th Regiment Armory located at 68 Lexington Avenue between East 25th and 26th Streets in Manhattan, New York City is a historical building which began construction in 1904 and was completed in 1906. The building is still used to house the U.S. 69th Infantry Regiment, as well as for the...

.

MSG III also hosted seven NCAA men's basketball championships between 1943 and 1950, the first National Invitation Tournament
National Invitation Tournament
The National Invitation Tournament is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. There are two NIT events each season. The first, played in November and known as the Dick's Sporting Goods NIT Season Tip-Off , was founded in 1985...

 in 1938; and the NBA All-Star Game in 1954, 1955 and 1968. City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...

 (CCNY) was one of the first schools banned from playing at MSG due to the 1951 CCNY Point Shaving Scandal
CCNY Point Shaving Scandal
The CCNY point shaving scandal of 1950-1951 was a college basketball point shaving gambling scandal that involved seven schools in all, with four in Greater New York and three in the Midwest...

.

Notable events

  • The very first event held at the third Garden was a bicycle race
    Bicycle racing
    Bicycle racing is a competition sport in which various types of bicycles are used. There are several categories of bicycle racing including road bicycle racing, cyclo-cross, mountain bike racing, track cycling, BMX, bike trials, and cycle speedway. Bicycle racing is recognised as an Olympic sport...

     held from November 24 to the 29th, several weeks before the official opening of the arena.
  • Although MSG III never hosted a national political convention (see below), in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued a tradition begun in 1892 by Grover Cleveland
    Grover Cleveland
    Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...

     when 22,000 people came to a rally held to support him in his bid for the Presidency.
  • On March 15, 1937 a massive "Boycott Nazi Germany" rally was held in the Garden, sponsored by the American Jewish Congress
    American Jewish Congress
    The American Jewish Congress describes itself as an association of Jewish Americans organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts....

     and the Jewish Labor Committee
    Jewish Labor Committee
    The Jewish Labor Committee is an American secular Jewish organization dedicated to promoting labor union interests in Jewish communities, and Jewish interests within unions. The organization is headquartered in New York City, with local/regional offices in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago...

    . John L. Lewis
    John L. Lewis
    John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...

     of the Congress of Industrial Organizations
    Congress of Industrial Organizations
    The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...

     and New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia were among the speakers.
  • Ice skater
    Ice skating
    Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and...

     and film star Sonia Henie brought her Hollywood Ice Review to the Garden in 1938, drawing more than 15,000 fans.
  • On February 20, 1939 a Pro-Nazi organization called German American Bund held a rally with 20,000 in attendance at the third Madison Square Garden. By December 1941 the U.S. Government outlawed the group.
  • Evangelist Billy Graham
    Billy Graham
    William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...

     had a New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

     mission at the Garden, in 1957, which ran nightly for 16 weeks.
  • Thirteen thousand people attended the rodeo
    Rodeo
    Rodeo is a competitive sport which arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain, Mexico, and later the United States, Canada, South America and Australia. It was based on the skills required of the working vaqueros and later, cowboys, in what today is the western United States,...

    , featuring Gene Autry
    Gene Autry
    Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...

    , in 1940.
  • Elizabeth Taylor
    Elizabeth Taylor
    Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

     was the host when Hollywood producer Mike Todd
    Mike Todd
    Michael Todd was an American theatre and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture...

     held an anniversary party for his film Around the World in 80 Days on October 17, 1957, featuring Marilyn Monroe
    Marilyn Monroe
    Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....

     riding an elephant.
  • Monroe also memorably sang Happy Birthday to You
    Happy Birthday to You
    "Happy Birthday to You", also known more simply as "Happy Birthday", is a song that is traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth...

    to President John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy
    John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

     at his birthday party at the Garden in May 1962.

Demolition

When the third Madison Square Garden was torn down there was a proposal to build the world's tallest building on the site, prompting a major battle in the Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River....

 neighborhood where it was located. Ultimately, the debate resulted in strict height restrictions in the area. The space remained a parking lot until 1989 when Worldwide Plaza
One Worldwide Plaza
One Worldwide Plaza is part of a three-building, mixed-use commercial and residential complex completed in 1989, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known collectively as Worldwide Plaza. One Worldwide Plaza is a commercial office tower on Eighth Avenue...

 designed by David Childs
David Childs
David M. Childs is the Consulting Design Partner at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. He is best known for his redesign of the new One World Trade Center in New York....

 of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP is an American architectural and engineering firm that was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John O. Merrill. They opened their first branch in New York City, New York in 1937. SOM is one of the largest...

 opened on the site of the old Garden and French Polyclinic Hospital across the street.

In popular culture

  • One type of event that was never held in the 50th St. Garden was a national Democratic
    Democratic Party (United States)
    The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

     or Republican
    Republican Party (United States)
    The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

     nominating convention
    Political convention
    In politics, a political convention is a meeting of a political party, typically to select party candidates.In the United States, a political convention usually refers to a presidential nominating convention, but it can also refer to state, county, or congressional district nominating conventions...

    , as neither party met in New York to select their candidates for President
    President of the United States
    The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

     and Vice President
    Vice President of the United States
    The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

     between 1924 and 1976. Despite this, the climactic scenes of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate
    The Manchurian Candidate (1962 film)
    The Manchurian Candidate is a 1962 American Cold War political thriller film starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury, and featuring Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish and John McGiver...

    , in which a brainwashed assassin attempts to kill a Presidential nominee at a convention, was filmed at the third Garden.
  • In addition, the scene from Citizen Kane
    Citizen Kane
    Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...

    with Charles Foster Kane
    Charles Foster Kane
    Charles Foster Kane is a fictional character and the subject of Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane. Welles played Kane , with Buddy Swan playing Kane as a child...

     standing in front of his giant picture making a campaign speech as a candidate for Governor of New York
    Governor of New York
    The Governor of the State of New York is the chief executive of the State of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military and naval forces. The officeholder is afforded the courtesy title of His/Her...

     took place in the third Garden, although it was not filmed there.
  • MSG III was featured prominently in the story of Ron Howard
    Ron Howard
    Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...

    's 2005 film Cinderella Man
    Cinderella Man
    Cinderella Man is a 2005 American drama film by Ron Howard, titled after the nickname of heavyweight boxing champion James J. Braddock and inspired by his life story. The film was produced by Howard, Penny Marshall, and Brian Grazer.-Plot:James J...

    , although exterior montage shots glorified it by placing it against the Times Square
    Times Square
    Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

     signs on Broadway
    Broadway theatre
    Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

    , when in fact the building was one block west.
  • Several Warner Bros.
    Warner Bros.
    Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

     cartoons referred to the arena as "Madison Round Garden", and the Popeye
    Popeye
    Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...

     cartoon Brotherly Love referred to the Garden as "Patterson Square Garden."


See also

  • Madison Square Garden (1879)
    Madison Square Garden (1879)
    Madison Square Garden was an arena in New York City located at East 26th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The first venue to use that name, it had a seating capacity of 10,000 spectators...

  • Madison Square Garden (1890)
    Madison Square Garden (1890)
    Madison Square Garden was an indoor arena in New York City, the second by that name, and the second to be located at 26th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan...

  • Madison Square Garden
    Madison Square Garden
    Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

  • Madison Square Garden Bowl
    Madison Square Garden Bowl
    Madison Square Garden Bowl was the name of an outdoor arena in the New York City borough of Queens. Built in 1932, the arena hosted circuses and boxing matches. Its seating capacity was 72,000 spectators. It was eventually destroyed after years of disuse....


External links

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