Madison Square Garden (1925)

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Madison Square Garden (MSG III) was an

Groundbreaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925.[1] Designed by the theater architect

The arena, which opened on December 15, 1925,^[3] 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 side balcony could count on having some portion of the ice obstructed. The poor ventilation and allowed smoking often caused haze in the upper portions of the Garden.

Madison Square Garden III was managed by Rickard,

Boxing

Boxing was Madison Square Garden III's principal claim to fame. The first bout took place on December 8, 1925, a week before its official opening. On January 17, 1941, 23,190 people witnessed Fritzie Zivic's successful welterweight title defense against Henry Armstrong, still the largest crowd at any of the Gardens.^[4]

Hockey

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 officially opened the Garden in front of 17,000 by losing to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1^[1] – Shorty Green of the Americans was the first player to score a goal in the arena.^[3] The Americans were so tremendously successful that Rickard wanted his own team. The Rangers were founded in 1926 and played their first game in the Garden on November 16, 1926.^[1] 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 with their own success, winning three Stanley Cups between 1928 and 1940. The refusal of the Garden's management to allow the postwar resurrection of the Americans team was one popular theory underlying the Curse of 1940, which supposedly prevented the Rangers from winning another Stanley Cup until 1994. Another alleged cause of "The Curse" stemmed from manager Kilpatrick burning the Garden's mortgage papers in the bowl of the Stanley Cup, made possible by receipts from the 1940 Cup run. Hockey purists believed that the trophy had been "defiled", leading to the Rangers' woes.

The New York Rovers, a farm team of the Rangers, played in the Garden on Sunday afternoons, while the Rangers played on Wednesday and Sunday nights.^[1] Tommy Lockhart managed the Rovers games and introduced on-ice promotions such as racing model aircraft and bicycles around the arena, figure skating acts Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies and Sonja Henie, and a skating grizzly bear.^[5] The fourth floor of the Garden had a second sheet of ice, used for public skating, recreational hockey, and as the Rangers' practice facility.

Basketball

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] Due to other event bookings in the arena, all their home games during the 1951, 1952 and 1953 NBA Finals were played at the Armory; thus MSG III never hosted an NBA Finals game. MSG III hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 1954, 1955 and 1968.

In 1931, a highly successful college basketball triple header raised money for Mayor

From 1925 until 1961, Madison Square Garden hosted the Six Days of New York, an annual six-day racing event of track cycling. Upon its final running, it was the longest-running series in the world with 73 editions.

Other entertainment

Circus

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus debuted at the second Garden in 1919, and the third Garden continued to host numerous performances. The circus was so important to the Garden that for the 1928 Stanley Cup Finals, the Rangers were forced to play all their games on the road, but they still won the series. The circus performed as often as three times daily throughout the life of the third Garden, repeatedly knocking the Rangers out of the Garden at playoff time.^[8]

The circus acrobatics included acts in the rings, on the high wire, and trapeze. One dramatic act which was only performed in the Garden, and never 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.

Dog show

The Garden continued to host The Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show. This championship is the second longest continuously running U.S. sporting event (behind only the Kentucky Derby).

Other events

• The very first event held at the third Garden was a
  bicycle race
  held from November 24–29, 1925, several weeks before the official opening of the arena.
• Although MSG III never hosted a national political convention (
  U.S. presidency.^[1] Herbert Hoover also delivered his final campaign speech for the 1932 election at the Garden. In 1936, Roosevelt delivered his last campaign speech there before the election.^[9]
• On March 15, 1937, a massive "Boycott Nazi Germany" rally was held in the Garden, sponsored by the American Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labor Committee. John L. Lewis of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia were among the speakers.^[10]
• Sonia Henie brought her Hollywood Ice Review to the Garden in 1938, drawing more than 15,000 fans.^[1]
• On February 20, 1939, a pro-Nazi organization called German American Bund held a rally of 20,000 at the third Garden. By December 1941, the federal government had outlawed the group.
• During the height of its popularity during the Great Depression, the Communist Party USA held mass rallies which filled the stadium.^[9]
• In 1940, 13,000 people attended the rodeo, featuring Gene Autry.^[1]
• On March 9, 1942, a mass memorial service for the 2,000,000 Jews known to have been murdered by the Nazis to that time in Axis-occupied Europe, was held in the venue. The service was called We Will Never Die. 40,000 people attended the two performances that day.^[11]
• In 1957, evangelist Billy Graham held a New York City mission at the Garden, which ran nightly for 16 weeks.
• Elizabeth Taylor was the host when Hollywood producer Mike Todd held an anniversary party for his film Around the World in 80 Days on October 17, 1957, featuring Marilyn Monroe riding an elephant.^[1]
• President John F. Kennedy's birthday party in May 1962 was held at the Garden, where Marilyn Monroe memorably sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President".^[1]
• In the early 1960s, MSG III was the site of the Daily News Jazz Festival.^[12]

Closure and demolition

On November 3, 1960,

• The 1936 Western musical film Rhythm on the Range, starring Bing Crosby, was filmed in part at MSGIII during the 1935 rodeo.^[13]
• The 50th Street Garden never held a national Democratic or Republican presidential nominating convention, because neither party met in New York to select their presidential candidates between 1924 and 1976. Despite this, some of the climactic scenes of the thriller film The Manchurian Candidate (1962), in which a brainwashed assassin attempts to kill a presidential nominee at a convention, was filmed at the third Garden.^[14]
• MSG III was featured prominently in the story of Ron Howard's film Cinderella Man (2005), although exterior montage shots glorified it by placing it against the Times Square signs on Broadway, when in fact the building was one block west.^{[citation needed]}
• Several Warner Bros. cartoons referred to the arena as "Madison Round Garden", and the Popeye cartoon Brotherly Love referred to the Garden as "Patterson Square Garden."^{[citation needed]}
• A 1958 episode of the
  television series Richard Diamond, Private Detective entitled "Rodeo", starring David Janssen, is a dramatization of the murder of a rodeo performer, Ed Murdock, played by Lee Van Cleef, who seeks to reclaim the top prize at Madison Square Garden before he retires to an isolated ranch. His wife, Marcy (Barbara Baxley) conspires with Charles Decker (Harry Lauter) to have him murdered and to frame another rodeo performer for the crime. Dan Blocker appears in the episode as Cloudy Sims, still another rodeo cowboy.^[15]
• The
  baby carriage and climbs up to the roof of the third Garden on the 49th Street side. The baby is saved by the character Big Jule shooting Bongo between the eyes, sending him backwards onto the roof.^[16]
• The Garden was featured in the 2023 film Sweetwater

See also

• Madison Square Garden (1879)
• Madison Square Garden (1890)
• Madison Square Garden (1968)
• Madison Square Garden Bowl

References

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External links

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• Arena information

Preceded by Barton Street Arena	Home of the New York Americans 1925–1942	Succeeded by last arena
Preceded by First arena	Home of the New York Rangers 1926–1968	Succeeded by Madison Square Garden
Preceded by First arena	Home of the New York Knicks 1946–1968	Succeeded by Madison Square Garden