Madison Square Garden

All About Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden is the most famous and most easily recognized music venue in the world. Its fabled history, going back almost 150 years, includes not only landmark sporting events such as boxing championships, hockey,and basketball, along with musical events such as George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and The Concert for New York City after September 11, but also its share of controversy, including a sensational murder. Featured in scores of books, movies and television shows throughout its history, Madison Square Garden is a major part not only of sports and musical history, but of the history of New York and the country as a whole.

The current Madison Square Garden is the fourth building to bear that name. The first, on the corner of Madison Avenue and 26th Street, was a former railroad station remodeled by the famous showman P.T. Barnum and named “Barnum’s Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome”. The building was later renamed Gilmore’s Garden after a popular bandleader, and finally given the name it would pass down through the years in 1879. In 1890 the famous architect Stanford White designed the second Madison Square Garden, which replaced the original building in the same location. Sixteen years later, White was murdered during a theatrical performance in the Garden’s rooftop restaurant. White’s murder and the subsequent trial made for sensational newspaper headlines across the country, and was later chronicled in the novel and movie Ragtime. New York’s second tallest building, the Garden’s main hall contained seating for 8,000 with facilities for the addition of many more. White’s building was torn down in 1926 and a new Madison Square Garden was built by boxing promoter Tex Rickard in an entirely different location, 50th Street and Eighth Avenue. The new building was used not only for boxing matches, but as the home of the New York Rangers hockey team and the Barnum and Bailey Circus. This third version of Madison Square Garden was essentially a nondescript box, with bad sightlines and poor ventilation. It was closed in 1967 and replaced by the current building, at Eight Avenue and 33rd Street.

The new facility was built on the former location of the Pennsylvania Station building, and architectural landmark whose demolition caused a good deal of controversy in the early 1960s. The station still operates underground, beneath the Garden. The current Madison Square Garden hosts 320 events a year, including all of the Rangers’ and Knicks’ home games, lacrosse tournaments, boxing and wrestling matches and musical events. Depending on the configuration it can hold up to 21,000 people, and includes a separate, 5,600 seat theater. Although sports make up the majority of the Garden’s business, musical performances have probably brought it even greater fame. Many famous pop acts have played their numerous times, including Elton John, who has called it his favorite place to play and who holds the record for the most performances in the Garden at 60; Billy Joel, who famously played 12 nights in a row, the longest continuous stand by any performer; the Rolling Stones (26 times); and many others. The Garden is now considered the premium performance venue in New York, and few popular musicians' careers are considered complete until they’ve performed there at least once. Even alternative bands such as Arcade Fire and LCD Soundsystem have performed sold-out shows there. In 2009, country star Taylor Swift sold out the Garden in 60 seconds.