MADISON SQUARE GARDEN 

 

7th Avenue & W. 33^rd Street
Box Office (212) 465-6000

For millions of New Yorkers and sports fans around the world, Madison Square Garden is the Mecca of professional sports. Aptly named "The World’s Most Famous Arena", the Garden has over five million fans a year passing through it’s doors. It is the home of four different New York Sports franchises; The Knicks , The Rangers, the Liberty (WNBA) and the New York CityHawks of the Arena Football League. It is also the site for numerous other events like the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Bailey Circus, World Championship Boxing and much more.

Madison Square Garden is located directly above Penn Station on 34^th Street and 7^th Ave., making it highly accessible by public transportation. This location is actually the fourth Madison Square Garden to be in New York. The original Garden was unveiled in 1874 and was called Barnums Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome. Located at 26^th Street and Madison Ave., it hosted circus-type attractions like fire-eaters and chariot races. The lease changed hands a couple of times, changing it’s name to Gilmores Garden and eventually to Madison Square Garden in 1879. This Garden was demolished and rebuilt on the same spot and was in operation here until 1925.

The New York Life Insurance Company owned the land occupied by this Garden and decided it was the perfect location for it’s national headquarters. The Garden was then demolished again, moving to a location on 8^th Ave. This venue lasted until 1968 when construction of the new Madison Square Garden was completed.

In 1968 the new Garden was unveiled and was opened by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby with a "Salute to the USO". Since then, the Garden has seen the Knicks win two championships (1970 & 1973), the Rangers win a Stanley Cup (1994) and some huge sporting events like Ali – Frazier in 1971. Most recently, the Garden hosted one of the Championship games for the ’99 WNBA season as the New York Liberty fell one game short of taking the title.

The Garden has also become one of the premier concert venues in the world. It attracts some of the biggest names in entertainment to it’s stage. A bit of trivia is that the Grateful Dead have played the Garden 52 times, more than any other group.

The Garden occupies 820,000 square feet of land and is comprised of the 20,000 seat main arena, The Theater (formerly known as the Felt Forum and the Paramount), the 40,000 square foot Expo Center, two restaurants and 89 club suites.

Some of the Garden’s legends are enshrined in the Garden Walk of Fame. This tribute to 45 stars that made the Garden great can be seen in the Mall as visitors enter the building from 7^th Avenue.