Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG, known colloquially simply as The Garden, has been the name of four arenas in New York City, United States. It is also the name of the entity which owns the arena and several of the professional sports franchises which play there. There have been four incarnations of the arena. The first two were located at Madison Square, thus the name. Subsequently a new 20,000-seat Garden was built at 50th Street and 8th Avenue, and the current Garden is at 7th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station. The present arena is informally known to some by its advertising slogan, “The World’s Most Famous Arena”.

	Capacity		Basketball: 19,673, Hockey: 18,200
	Opened		1968
	Owner		Cablevision (through Madison Square Garden L.P.)
	Operator		Cablevision (through Madison Square Garden, L.P)
	Construction cost		$123 million USD
	Architect		Charles Luckman Associates, Ellerbe Becket

Madison Square Garden derives its name from the park where the first two gardens were located (Madison Square) on Madison Avenue at 23rd Street. As the venue moved to new locations the name still stuck.

As of September 2005, the Garden’s current owner, Cablevision, has plans to build a fifth Garden. If the project moves forward, a new Garden would be built at the western end of the James Farley Post Office, on 33rd Street and Ninth Avenue across the street, which is also eyed for a western expansion of Pennsylvania Station. The new Garden, which would remain home to the Rangers and the Knicks, would feature wide concourses with stores and restaurants, luxury boxes with better sight lines for basketball and hockey games, a museum, and a hall of fame. The current garden would be torn down to be replaced with an office tower.

World Wrestling Entertainment considers it its home arena as well. However, in 2005, World Wrestling Entertainment temporarily broke off their relationship with ‘The Garden’ due to the fact that WWE felt that since rental costs for the building have gone up, they could no longer make a profit in the building. However, a year later, World Wrestling Entertainment patched things up with MSG, and have agreed to host the 2007 edition of SummerSlam in the venue.

MSG is also known for its place in the history of boxing. Many of boxing’s biggest fights were held at Madison Square Garden, including many of Joe Louis, the Roberto Duran-Ken Buchanan affair, and the first and second Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali bouts. Before promoters such as Don King and Bob Arum moved boxing to Las Vegas, Madison Square Garden was considered the mecca of boxing.

Most large popular-music concerts in New York City take place in Madison Square Garden. Particularly famous ones include The Concert for New York City following the September 11 attacks and John Lennon’s final concert appearance before his murder in 1980.

Many musical acts released seminal live albums recorded at MSG, including Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Phish, and Elvis Presley. Pearl Jam released a DVD of a concert at the Garden. Bands including Phish, Cream and The Jacksons have had reunion shows there.

The arena is also used for other special events, including Tennis, Circus, and Wrestling events. The New York Police Academy also holds its annual graduation ceremony for new officers at Madison Square Garden. It has become the New York site of the annual Grammy Awards, (which are normally held in Los Angeles) and hosted the 2005 Country Music Association Awards (normally held in Nashville).

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Madison Square Garden website
Madison Square Garden wikipedia entry
New York Knicks website
Knicks Online Fansite
New York Rangers website
Outside the Garden Fansite
New York Liberty website
New York Lacrosse Team website

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