This is the odd history of the famous thing with the name that’s wrong, three times over.
The story begins pretty dreadfully, in New York City in the 1700’s. At the north end of the city, there is a swamp which is being used as a potter’s field. As the city grows and develops, the swamp is drained to make room for a military barracks and a home for juvenile delinquents. When the home burns down in 1839, it is replaced by a roadhouse which serves as the last stop in the city for folks travelling north. To give the place some cachet, the owner names the joint “Madison Cottage” after the former President (who ironically always hated New York). It only lasts until 1853, when it is razed to make room for a hotel, but by that point the area has become synonymous with the roadhouse. And so we get – quite indirectly – today’s “Madison Avenue,” and along its length from 23rd to 26th Streets, “Madison Square Park.”
As the city grows and expands northward, the area is redeveloped. In 1871, a large train depot at the north end of the park is abandoned when Grand Central Station opens. Seeing an opportunity, an entertainment entrepreneur named P.T. Barnum leases the depot from Cornelius Vanderbilt, and transforms it into an open-air “hippodrome” for circus performances. It is then sublet – for only 2 years – to a concert promoter, who fills the place with fountains and flowers and renames it “Gilmore’s Concert Garden.” And later it serves as a communal meeting place for political events, boxing matches, and, famously, the site of the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, in 1877. And, somewhere along the way, it becomes known as “The Garden.”
In 1890, the drafty old building is purchased by a consortium that includes Barnum, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and W.W. Astor. They then hire the most famous architect of the day, Stanford White, to design a replacement. And he comes up with a colossus that features the largest main hall in the world, a concert hall, seating for 8000, the largest restaurant in the city, and a roof garden cabaret. Though it is designed in Beaux Arts style, it is has a Moorish feel and a bell tower modelled after the minaret of the Cathedral of Seville, atop of which is an 18-foot sculpture of Diana, which turns in the wind 32 stories above the ground. The structure is a modern marvel and the second-tallest building in New York, but – as you might expect in such a twisted tale – becomes best known for a murder, which occurs in 1906, when Henry Kendall Thaw shoots Stanford White in the rooftop restaurant for having an affair with his wife.
The rest of the story is almost an afterthought. In 1925, the famous building is torn down to make room for the New York Life building. The venue is moved away from Madison Square, one the city’s swankiest neighborhoods, to Hell’s Kitchen. Here a boxing venue is built, with seating for 18,000, but other sporting events are held here. In 1968, it is replaced by a fourth incarnation, which is built, ironically, atop a railroad station. Today, as you stand outside and look at it, you immediately see its defining aspect: it’s round.
It’s a roadhouse, born in a swampy cemetery fit only for soldiers and criminals. Transformed by a showman and multiple millionaires. Four times built, three times destroyed. Witness to the crime of the century. Home to politicians, purebreds, pugilists and power forwards.
It’s not named for James Madison. It’s not Square. It’s not a Garden. But it endures. Madison Square Garden, the world’s most famous arena.
the quick Sliver 