| Madison Square Garden | |
|---|---|
| Madison Square Garden III | |
hand-colored postcard |
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| Full name | Madison Square Garden |
| Location | New York City, New York |
| Opened | 1925 |
| Closed | 1968 |
| Owner | Tex Rickard |
| Operator | Tex Rickard |
| Architect | Thomas W. Lamb |
| Capacity | Basketball: 18,496 Ice Hockey: 15,925 |
| Tenants | |
| New York Rangers (NHL) (1926–1968) New York Knicks (NBA) (1946–1968) New York Americans (NHL) (1925–1942) NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament (1943–1948, 1950) National Invitation Tournament (1938–1968) |
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Madison Square Garden (MSG III) was an indoor arena in New York City, the third of that name. It was built in 1925 and closed in 1968, and was located on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets in Manhattan on the site of the city's trolley car barns.[1] It was the first Garden that was not located near Madison Square. MSG III was the home of the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League as well as the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association, and also hosted numerous boxing matches, concerts, and many other events.
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Ground breaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925.[1] Designed by the noted theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, 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.[1] The new arena was dubbed "The House That Tex Built."[2] In contrast to the ornate towers of Stanford White's second Garden, the exterior of MSG III was a simple box. Its most distinctive feature was the ornate marquee 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 m), with seating on three levels, and a maximum capacity of 18,496 spectators for boxing.[1] 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 and Irving Mitchell Felt.[1] It was eventually replaced by the current Madison Square Garden.
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's successful welterweight offense against Henry Armstrong, still the largest crowd for any of the Gardens.
The New York Rangers, 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 had begun play in 1925 – and in fact, officially opened the Garden by losing to the Montreal Canadiens 3-1[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,[1] and both teams played at the Garden until the Americans suspended operations in 1942 due to World War II. In the meantime, the Rangers had usurped the Americans' commercial success with their own success on the ice, winning three Stanley Cups 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, which supposedly prevented the Rangers from winning the Stanley Cup again until 1994.
The New York Rovers, a farm team of the Rangers, also played in the Garden on Sunday afternoons, while the Rangers played on Wednesday and Sunday nights.[1]
While the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus 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, 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.[3]
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 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.
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 against the Washington Palace Five; the Celtics won 35-31.[1] The New York Knicks debuted there in 1946, although if there was an important college game, they played in the 69th Regiment Armory.[1]
MSG III also hosted seven NCAA men's basketball championships between 1943 and 1950, the first National Invitation Tournament in 1938; and the NBA All-Star Game in 1954, 1955 and 1968. City College of New York (CCNY) was one of the first schools banned from playing at MSG due to the 1951 CCNY Point Shaving Scandal.[4]
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 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 designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill opened on the site of the old Garden and French Polyclinic Hospital across the street.