"The New Garden" replaced what became known as "The Old Garden," between 49th and 50th Streets, and between 8th and 9th Avenues. That building was soon demolished. A parking lot was on the site for many years, until the 778-foot Worldwide Plaza was built there, opening in 1989.
The NHL's New York Rangers had played at the Old Garden since their inception in 1926; the NBA's New York Knicks, since theirs in 1946. Both immediately moved into the New Garden, the 4th building with the name, which has now lasted longer than any of the others.
The Knicks' last game at the Old Garden was on February 10, a 115-97 win over the defending NBA Champion Philadelphia 76ers, led by Wilt Chamberlain. The Rangers' last game at the Old Garden was the last event there, the next day, a 3-3 tie with Gordie Howe's Detroit Red Wings. The game was followed by several old-timers having a final skate.
The 1st Garden was just off Madison Square, on the northeast corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue. It opened in 1879. In 1891, it was replaced by the 2nd Garden. New York Life Insurance Company held the mortgage on the property, and decided it wanted it for their new headquarters.
Boxing promoter George "Tex" Rickard -- the hockey team he wanted to run was nicknamed "Tex's Rangers" for him by the press, and he stuck with it -- took the opportunity to build a Garden that he would own, and that was the Old Garden, which opened on November 28, 1925, and the New York Life Building opened in 1928 on the site of the predecessor, and still stands.
Major renovations of the Garden would be undertaken in the early 1990s, removing the old red, white and blue seat-color scheme (the top, 400 level being known as the Blue Seats also for the air turning blue with cigarette smoke and "blue language"), replacing them with aquamarine and purple; and again in the early 2010s, a process called "The Garden Transformed," making for all dark green seats, raising basketball seating capacity from the traditional 19,763 to 19,812, but lowering the hockey seating capacity from 18,200 to 18,006.
Here is a chronology of some of the great events in the 1st half-century of the only Madison Square Garden that I've ever known:
February 11, 1968: Mere hours after the Rangers closed the Old Garden, the New Garden opens with "The Night of the Century," a salute to the USO, the United Service Organizations, which since 1941 has worked with the armed forces to provide supplies and entertainment. The co-hosts were old film partners and golfing buddies Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
Bob Hope, Mayor John Lindsay, Bing Crosby
February 14, 1968: The 1st basketball game is played at the New Garden. The 1st basket is scored by Dave DeBusschere. But not for the Knicks! Double D hadn't yet been acquired, and, even in the early days of the New Garden, the company running the arena would host basketball doubleheaders, college and pro alike.
DeBusschere's Detroit Pistons lose to the
Boston Celtics, with Bill Russell playing and coaching, 118-96. In the nightcap, the Knicks defeat the San Diego Rockets
114-102.
Also opening on this day is the Felt Forum, a smaller, 5,500-seat arena at The Garden's west, 8th Avenue end, with a separate entrance from the main building. This theater hosted fights and concerts not big enough for the main arena, and, for a few years, the NFL Draft.
It was named for Irving Mitchell Felt, who in 1962 had transformed the Graham-Paige Motors Corporation into the Madison Square Garden Corporation, demolished the old Penn Station, and built the Pennsylvania Plaza complex that includes the "new" Penn Station and the "new" Garden.
In 1977, Felt was bought out by Gulf and Western Industries. In 1989, G&W was bought out by Paramount Communications. In 1994, Cablevision, owned by Charles Dolan and his son James, bought the MSG Corporation. (I've often said that the Knicks, or the Rangers, are just one man away from being serious title contenders, but that one man is James Dolan, as Charles gives him free rein.)
The Felt Forum was given the name The Paramount Theater in 1991. For 6 years, Madison Square Garden, Penn Station, and the Paramount Theater, all New York legends at their original locations, were in the same complex.
The former Felt Forum was renamed The Theater at Madison Square Garden in 1997. In 2007, Washington Mutual (who bought out the Dime Savings Bank of New York in 2002) bought the naming rights, and it became the WaMu Theater. But WaMu went bust in the Crash of 2008, and since 2009, the Felt Forum has again been named The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
Also opening on this day is the Felt Forum, a smaller, 5,500-seat arena at The Garden's west, 8th Avenue end, with a separate entrance from the main building. This theater hosted fights and concerts not big enough for the main arena, and, for a few years, the NFL Draft.
It was named for Irving Mitchell Felt, who in 1962 had transformed the Graham-Paige Motors Corporation into the Madison Square Garden Corporation, demolished the old Penn Station, and built the Pennsylvania Plaza complex that includes the "new" Penn Station and the "new" Garden.
In 1977, Felt was bought out by Gulf and Western Industries. In 1989, G&W was bought out by Paramount Communications. In 1994, Cablevision, owned by Charles Dolan and his son James, bought the MSG Corporation. (I've often said that the Knicks, or the Rangers, are just one man away from being serious title contenders, but that one man is James Dolan, as Charles gives him free rein.)
The Felt Forum was given the name The Paramount Theater in 1991. For 6 years, Madison Square Garden, Penn Station, and the Paramount Theater, all New York legends at their original locations, were in the same complex.
The former Felt Forum was renamed The Theater at Madison Square Garden in 1997. In 2007, Washington Mutual (who bought out the Dime Savings Bank of New York in 2002) bought the naming rights, and it became the WaMu Theater. But WaMu went bust in the Crash of 2008, and since 2009, the Felt Forum has again been named The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
WaMu was bought out by JPMorgan Chase, itself a merger of several companies: The Bank of Manhattan bought Chase National Bank in 1955, forming Chase Manhattan; Chemical Bank bought Manufacturer's Hanover Trust in 1991, and bought Chase Manhattan in 1996, but kept Chase's more familiar name; and merged with J.P. Morgan's old company in 2000.
February 18, 1968: The Rangers play their 1st game at the New Garden. They also played an expansion team, the Philadelphia Flyers, and won 3-1.
January 24, 1969: The Doors perform the 1st major rock concert at the New Garden, with The Staple Singers as the opening act.
May 18, 1969: The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
October 15, 1969: On a day that featured a big demonstration against the Vietnam War in Washington, D.C., and the Mets winning Game 4 of the World Series thanks to Ron Swoboda's catch and the J.C. Martin play, the Rangers beat the Minnesota North Stars 4-3.
It is the dawn of cable television, and this becomes the 1st event to be broadcast on the Madison Square Garden Network, or just "MSG" as it's been officially known since 2006. It is the 1st regional sports network in America.
In addition to the Knicks, the Rangers, and eventually the Liberty and (though they don't play home games at The Garden), the Islanders, the Devils and the MetroStars/Red Bulls, from 1989 to 2001 they held the Yankees' cable-TV rights, until the Yankees let the contract run out and formed the YES Network.
November 27-28, 1969: The Rolling Stones, touring to support Let It Bleed, with B.B. King opening.
That's Marlo Thomas' That Girl hairstyle on Mick Jagger's shirt,
not the Greek letter Omega.
December 19, 1969: Janis Joplin, with Paul Butterfield and Johnny Winter playing before her (not together). This was the day after I was born. Neither the Knicks nor the Rangers played on the 18th.
May 8, 1970: Knicks Captain Willis Reed, a doubt due to an injury suffered in Game 5, limps onto the court for the pregame shootaround before Game 7 of the NBA Finals, and it not only lifts the Knicks up, but deflates the Los Angeles Lakers. The game begins, and Willis hits 2 baskets. They're the only shots he takes all game. They're the only shots he needs.
The Yankees had won 20 World Series. The now-departed baseball Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers had won World Series. The football Giants had won 4 NFL Championships. The Rangers had won 3 Stanley Cups. Even the expansion Mets and Jets had won World Championships.
Now, after some agonizing close calls, the Knicks had done it as well, capping a 16-month stretch that also included the Jets' Super Bowl upset and the Mets' World Series "miracle." It remains the greatest day in the history of Madison Square Garden, in any building under that name.
They would win the title again in 1973, again over the Lakers, but clinched in Los Angeles. Well, in Inglewood
May 13, 1970: Creedence Clearwater Revival, with Wilbert Harrison and Booker T. & the M.G.'s.
September 19, 1970: Led Zeppelin, on their 1st North American tour.
October 16, 1970: The Jackson 5, on their 1st nationwide tour.
March 8, 1971: For the only time in history, two undefeated Heavyweight Champions of the World went at it: Official champion Joe Frazier, and defrocked champion Muhammad Ali. Like many others, it was billed as The Fight of the Century. It was also called The Super Fight. It was also called simply The Fight.
Most of the fight was even. But as it went on, Ali's rustiness began to show. In the 15th and final scheduled round, Frazier's famed left hook knocked Ali down. He got right back up, but it was too late: The knockdown was enough to give Frazier a unanimous decision, and the undisputed title.
They would fight twice more, in a non-title bout at The Garden in 1974 (Frazier had been beaten by George Foreman, whom Ali then beat to regain the title), and in the Philippines in 1975, a fight known as The Thrilla in Manila. Ali won both.
April 29, 1971: Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Semifinals goes to triple overtime before Pete Stemkowski scores to give the Rangers a 3-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. Until 1979, maybe even 1994, this was the most dramatic Ranger win at the New Garden. But the Rangers lost Game 7 in Chicago 2 days later.
August 1, 1971: Ex-Beatle George Harrison and his close friend, Indian sitar icon Ravi Shankar (whom your generation might know as singer Norah Jones' father), organize The Concert for Bangladesh, after hearing of the plight of refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War and a devastating cyclone. (The country, then as now one of the poorest in the world, had gained its independence from Pakistan, having previously been known as East Pakistan, separated from Pakistan proper by India.)
There were actually 2 shows that Sunday, both filmed for a documentary: At 2:30 in the afternoon and 8:00 at night. It was George's 1st full concert since the Beatles' last tour, 5 years earlier. His band included, among others, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton (who did the show despite being ill), Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, Leon Russell and Jim Keltner. Shankar played with his group. Also on the bill: Bob Dylan, in his 1st full show since his motorcycle wreck 5 years earlier, and the British band Badfinger.
Harrison, Dylan, Russell
This spectacle stamped The Garden as the most important concert venue in the New York Tri-State Area, in a way that the Nassau Coliseum, the Meadowlands Arena, and the baseball and football stadiums could never be.
While the Old Garden never hosted a rock and roll show, the New Garden remains the place. An act that comes to New York and doesn't play The Garden either isn't big enough to do so, or is brash enough to think that only the Meadowlands stadium can hold him/her/them.
New Jersey-born singer Ashley Frangipane, who named herself Halsey after a street sign she'd seen in Brooklyn, first played The Garden on August 13, 2016, and she showed that she got it: She tweeted the right lyric from one of her songs to describe the experience: "You can find me in the kingdom."
October 15, 1971: Richard Nader's Rock 'n Roll Revival is held. It was nicknamed "The Garden Party." This helped to kickstart the nostalgia wave for the 1950s and the early 1960s, as the generation that came of age during the Vietnam War wanted to think back to what seemed like a simpler time. (It wasn't, which was why Billy Joel wrote "We Didn't Start the Fire" in 1989.)
Among the performers were Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Bobby Rydell and Ricky Nelson. Except Nelson not only insisted, as he had for years, upon being introduced as "Rick Nelson" -- Ali had less trouble getting Garden management to accept a name change -- but came out with long hair, a purple velvet shirt, and bell-bottom jeans, as if he was taking the stage at Woodstock.
As was expected, he played his classics like "Hello Mary Lou," but he also played Dylan's "She Belongs to Me," and the crowd didn't like that. Then he played "Country Honk" by the Stones, and they flat-out booed. And he walked off the stage.
It wasn't until afterward that Nader told Nelson that the audience didn't want current music from anyone at his "oldies shows": Fans had booed The Supremes when they sang "Love Child," and doo-wop legend Little Anthony when he sang "Aquarius." Nelson insisted upon his artistic integrity, and wrote the song "Garden Party" about the event: "If memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck" -- a reference to the job that Elvis Presley had before he got a recording contract.
May 11, 1972: The Stanley Cup is won at Madison Square Garden for the 1st time. Unfortunately for the Rangers, it's won by the Boston Bruins, taking Game 6, 3-0. Bobby Orr scored the Bruins' 1st goal and assisted on the 2nd.
June 9, 10 & 11, 1972: The King of Rock and Roll claims the kingdom. In his book Only the Good Die Young, about dead rock stars and how they got that way, Robert Duncan recalled attending one of these four concerts (two of them on the 10th) at age 18 with his older brother. The brother was an Elvis fan. Robert was not. He wrote, "I was once in the same room with Elvis Presley. The year was 1972. The room, however, was Madison Square Garden... But I was once in the same room with Elvis, and that's what matters, isn't it?"
(He went on to savage Elvis in that chapter, repeating in brief some of the seamier allegations about him. Duncan was clearly a Sixties Guy, a Beatles Person -- not a Fifties Guy, an Elvis Person.)
Elvis at The Garden, reminding everybody
just who was King around here anyway
If it was anybody else, I wouldn't consider listing this one. But what Robert Duncan wrote with sarcasm, I write with conviction: It was Elvis in New York, and that's what matters, isn't it?
June 14, 1972: A benefit concert is held for the Presidential campaign of Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, who was officially nominated by the Democratic Party a month later in Miami Beach. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, who had split up 2 years earlier, temporarily reunited. Also performing are Dionne Warwick, and Peter, Paul & Mary.
July 24, 25 & 26, 1972: The Rolling Stones, touring to support their album Exile On Main Street, with Stevie Wonder opening. A few days later, they would be scheduled to play the Boston Garden, but, for whatever reason, the Stones' plane hadn't landed in time, and Stevie kept going and going and going, and by the point Mick and the boys showed up, nobody wanted Stevie to stop. What a tour this must have been.
August 30, 1972: Another ex-Beatle, John Lennon, does The One-to-One Concert, at the request of TV journalist Geraldo Rivera, who'd befriended John and done an exposé on the treatment of children with mental disabilities at the state-run Willowbrook School on Staten Island.
John called Geraldo, and recommended a benefit concert. John swallowed his differences with Paul McCartney and invited him, and Paul almost accepted, but didn't want Allen Klein involved. John did, and Paul backed out.
As with the Concert for Bangladesh, it was actually 2 shows in 1 day, both sold out. John was preceded onstage by doo-wop tribute group Sha Na Na, Roberta Flack, and Stevie Wonder. John was backed by his wife Yoko Ono, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from The Turtles and Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, and Elephant's Memory, with whom he'd recorded the album Some Time in New York City over the previous Winter.
The concert was filmed, and became the live album Live in New York City. He played only his solo work, aside from 1 Beatle song: "Come Together." Film of these performances was combined, by one enterprising Beatle fan, with footage of George and Ringo in the Concert for Bangladesh and Paul's Wings Over America tour in 1976, to create a video for the song, which the Beatles never made together -- nearly creating an "alternate history" in which the Fab Four hadn't broken up in 1970.
Sadly, the history we know says that this was John's last full concert.
July 26, 1973: I set foot in a major league sports venue for the 1st time. But it wasn't for a sporting event. My family took me to The Garden to see Disney On Parade. I was 3 years old, and I have no memory of the event. I do remember seeing the program for years afterward. It was yellow, and it had an image of Mary Poppins on it.
July 27, 28 & 29, 1973: I am not a big Led Zeppelin fan. The film made from footage of these concerts, The Song Remains the Same, released on October 20, 1976, didn't change that.
In my opinion, that film was one of the most damaging things ever to happen to rock and roll. It made every hard rock singer and musician on the planet want to copy Led Zep. Not just the music. Indeed, the music seemed to be the least important thing to them. They thought it was all about having big, long hair, open shirts, screeching like a maniac, prancing around onstage, playing your instrument as loud as possible (never mind playing it as well as possible), drinking like a fish, smoking like a chimney, screwing like a rabbit, acting like an ass, paying lip-service (and maybe more) to the occult, and, oh yeah, lots and lots of cocaine.
One member of Led Zeppelin, drummer John Bonham, died in 1980 from mixing booze and drugs. The other 3? Lead singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, and bassist John Paul Jones? They're still alive, but have you seen them lately? They look like they died 35 years ago, too!
January 30 & 31, 1974: Bob Dylan and The Band. It was Bob's 1st big tour in 8 years.
June 10, 11, 13 & 1974: The Who.
One member of Led Zeppelin, drummer John Bonham, died in 1980 from mixing booze and drugs. The other 3? Lead singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, and bassist John Paul Jones? They're still alive, but have you seen them lately? They look like they died 35 years ago, too!
January 30 & 31, 1974: Bob Dylan and The Band. It was Bob's 1st big tour in 8 years.
June 10, 11, 13 & 1974: The Who.
July 19 & 20, 1974: David Bowie, on his Diamond Dogs tour.
The Thin White Duke knew it was the Mecca of Boxing.
October 13, 1974: Frank Sinatra, backed by the Woody Herman Orchestra, in a concert recorded and filmed for a TV special, whose title tied in with his aforementioned love of boxing: The Main Event.
At the end of the show, Elton brought on a special guest. He had made a bet with John Lennon that if John's song "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," on which Elton had sung backup, hit Number 1 in the U.S., John would join him for this show. It did. John kept his word, and the audience, totally unaware that he was coming, gave the building its greatest ovation ever, with the possible exception of the one when Willis limped onto the court.
December 19 & 20, 1974: George Harrison and Ravi Shankar again, on George's Dark Horse tour.
June 22, 1975: The Rolling Stones, touring to support It's Only Rock 'n Roll, with the following supporting acts: The Eagles, The Gap Band, Rufus (with Chaka Khan singing lead), and Billy Preston. This was as close as you could get to a "Woodstock" during the Ford Administration.
November 2, 1975: The New York Rangers had traded popular goaltender Eddie Giacomin to the Detroit Red Wings, sparking outrage among their fans. As it happened, the Rangers' next home game was against the Wings.
Seeing Giacomin in not the white jersey with the blue Number 1, but the red jersey with the white Number 31, the Garden crowd chanted, "Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE!" all night long, and actually booed the Rangers when they scored. The Red Wings won, 6-4, and, for perhaps the only time in Madison Square Garden history, the home fans cheered a visiting team's victory.
It was the end of an era that had seen the Rangers rise to championship contention, but the closest they'd gotten to the Stanley Cup was the 1972 Finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in 6 games. They were knocked out of the previous season's Playoffs by a 3rd-year expansion team, the suburban Islanders.
Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79. With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, and retired his Number 1 in 1990.
Seeing Giacomin in not the white jersey with the blue Number 1, but the red jersey with the white Number 31, the Garden crowd chanted, "Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE! Ed-DIE!" all night long, and actually booed the Rangers when they scored. The Red Wings won, 6-4, and, for perhaps the only time in Madison Square Garden history, the home fans cheered a visiting team's victory.
Eddie Giacomin stops ex-teammate Jean Ratelle
It was the end of an era that had seen the Rangers rise to championship contention, but the closest they'd gotten to the Stanley Cup was the 1972 Finals, losing to the Boston Bruins in 6 games. They were knocked out of the previous season's Playoffs by a 3rd-year expansion team, the suburban Islanders.
Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79. With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, and retired his Number 1 in 1990.
December 8, 1975: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue, which included ex-girlfriend Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Roberta Flack.
April 3, 1976: You ever heard the expression that so-and-so "ran off and joined the circus"? I almost did that. Unintentionally.
When I was 6, my family took me to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at The Garden. Unlike my previous visit for the Disney show, I have memories of this. I remember Gunther Gebel-Williams and the tigers he'd trained. I remember Mihaly Meszaros, the 2-foot-9 man known as Michu, the World's Smallest Man -- an adult shorter than I was, and I was short for my age. I remember trapeze artists. I remember elephants. I remember clowns, and not being afraid of them.
But I also remember getting up to go to the bathroom, and coming out, and getting lost. The Garden is completely round. How do you get lost in a round building? Well, I was 6. It took a while, but I was found. My family never took me to the circus again.
April 3, 1976: You ever heard the expression that so-and-so "ran off and joined the circus"? I almost did that. Unintentionally.
When I was 6, my family took me to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at The Garden. Unlike my previous visit for the Disney show, I have memories of this. I remember Gunther Gebel-Williams and the tigers he'd trained. I remember Mihaly Meszaros, the 2-foot-9 man known as Michu, the World's Smallest Man -- an adult shorter than I was, and I was short for my age. I remember trapeze artists. I remember elephants. I remember clowns, and not being afraid of them.
May 24 & 25, 1976: Paul McCartney, in his Wings Over America tour, supporting the album Wings at the Speed of Sound.
Linda & Paul McCartney
July 12, 13, 14 & 15, 1976: The Democratic National Convention nominates former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia for President, and Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota for Vice President.
Jimmy Carter & Walter Mondale
October 8, 9 & 10, 1976: Peter Frampton, in his Frampton Comes Alive! tour.
February 5, 1977: Queen, for their A Day at the Races tour.
Freddie Mercury didn't have the mustache yet.
March 18, 1977: The Eagles, for their Hotel California tour.
March 29, 1977: The Circus returns. So does John Lennon, as a spectator, with his wife, Yoko Ono, and their son, Sean Lennon.
October 20 & 21, 1977: Rod Stewart, on his Foot Loose & Fancy Free Tour.
December 1 & 2, 1977: Queen, on their News of the World Tour. Yankee Fans could relate to their new hit single: "We Will Rock You," coupled with "We Are the Champions."
June 17, 1978: Bob Marley & the Wailers, on their Kaya Tour. This was the night that Ron Guidry of the Yankees struck out 18 California Angels, 130 blocks to the north.
August 21, 22 & 23, 1978: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band play The Garden for the 1st time, in support of Darkness On the Edge of Town.
August 25, 1978: Two middleweight contenders, Vito Antuofermo, an Italian who moved to Brooklyn to learn how to fight, and Willie "Macho" Classen, a black Puerto Rican who moved to Spanish Harlem to learn, fought at The Garden. Antuofermo was given the decision, and the pro-Classen crowd rioted.
Classen was furious: "I got robbed. They don't give black people no breaks in this place. You got to knock them dead, or you don't win." Antuofermo would get his chance at the title, and win it from Hugo Corro, before fighting a nasty draw with Marvelous Marvin Hagler, losing the title to Alan Minter, and then, after Hagler knocked Minter out, getting clobbered by Hagler.
Clobbered. Not "slaughtered." Keep that in mind. This was as close as Claussen ever got to the title.
February 25, 1979: After the Rangers got humiliated by the upstart Islanders in 1975, Ranger fans had become the phenomenon we know today: Nasty, drunken, boorish, barely verbal jackasses. Islander fans, many of them the same kind of nouveau riche that had glommed onto the Mets and the Jets 10 years earlier, weren't much better.
The Rangers beat the Islanders 3-2, but that's not what anybody remembers. Actually, Ranger fans remember the incident all wrong. Islander defenseman and Captain Denis Potvin's hit on Ranger center Ulf Nilsson was totally clean. Nilsson himself said so. No penalty was called, because, yes, it was a clean hit. Another lie is that "Nilsson never played again." He returned in time for the Finals. Devils broadcaster Glenn "Chico" Resch, who was the Isles' backup goalie in 1979, tells the story.
Well, maybe Harry Nilsson never played at The Garden again.
May 8, 1979: Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Semifinals. Rangers vs. Islanders again. This was a fantastic series, with the 4th-seeded Rangers pulling the upset over the 1st-seeded Isles. At the Nassau Coliseum, the Isles needed an overtime goal to avoid falling 2-0 behind, then tied the series with an overtime goal for a 2nd time in Game 4 at The Garden. The Rangers won Game 5 on the Island, and then pulled out Game 6 2-1, to face the Montreal Canadiens, who would be going for their 4th straight Stanley Cup, and heavily favored to win.
You would think that Ranger fans' lust for revenge on Potvin would have been fully satisfied after less than 3 months. But, no, 39 years later, these bozos still chant, "Potvin sucks!"
As the late great Keith Jackson would have said, "These two teams just don't like each other." The fans are even worse. There's a strip of asphalt that separates an entrance to Penn Station from the lobby of The Garden. It's only for pedestrians and delivery vehicles now, but it used to be a taxi stand. As crime got worse in the 1980s, I told people that the most dangerous spot in New York City was that taxi stand, with Ranger fans trying to get cabs to get home, and Islander fans trying to get to the Long Island Rail Road and get home, and there would always be a fight.
The following year, the Islanders would win their 1st Stanley Cup, beginning their dynasty. In 1984, they would play the Rangers in the Playoffs again, and it would be an even greater series, won by the Islanders in overtime in Game 5, although that would be at the Coliseum.
May 17, 1979: Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Before the game, Billy Joel -- who hasn't yet played a full show at the building he would essentially make a home-away-from-home -- sings the National Anthem. Ranger Dave Maloney would later admit that, when the song concluded, he skated up behind Billy, and swatted him on the rear end with his hockey stick.
Whether that had any effect on the game is hard to say, but the Canadiens won 4-1, taking the title at the Montreal Forum 4 days later.
September 4, 5 & 6, 1979: The Grateful Dead play The Garden for the 1st time.
September 19, 20, 21, 22 & 23, 1979: The Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) concerts are held, a.k.a. "The No Nukes Concert." Performers include Crosby, Stills & Nash; Carly Simon and James Taylor, then married to each other; Bonnie Raitt in her starmaking turn, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in theirs, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.
Petty remembered hearing what sounded like "Boooooooo!" when he came onstage. Someone told him they were really saying, "Bruuuuuuuuce!" for The Boss. He decided that, if that was true, it wasn't much better for him.
October 3, 1979: After delivering Mass at Yankee Stadium the night before, Pope John Paul II does so at Shea Stadium and The Garden.
November 23, 1979: Willie Classen steps into the Felt Forum ring with Wilford Scypion, having been pronounced fit to fight despite more losses since losing to Antuofermo. The fight should have been stopped no later than the 8th round, but Classen goes back in for the 9th and the 10th, until he is knocked out cold. An ambulance is called, but it's too late: Classen is in a coma, and dies 5 days later at Bellevue Hospital, only 29 years old.
In 1981, Governor Hugh Carey signed a bill into law, mandating an ambulance at every sanctioned fight in the State of New York. That same year, the New York State Athletic Commission added a rule mandating that a fighter must get out of his own corner, unaided, to start a round, or the referee must stop it. It is known as the Classen Rule. No fighter has died as a result of a Garden fight since.
Scypion didn't fare a whole lot better. He got a shot at the Welterweight Championship in 1983, but Hagler wrecked him, knocking him out in the 4th round. He became one of so many fighters to fall victim to dementia pugilistica, dying in 2014, only 55 years old.
June 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28, 1980: Billy Joel plays The Garden for the 1st time, in support of his album Glass Houses. While it's probably not true, it would eventually seem like there have been years when Billy has sold the building out more time than the Knicks or the Rangers.
August 11, 12, 13 & 14, 1980: The Democratic Convention returns to The Garden, to renominate President Carter and Vice President Mondale. But the atmosphere is totally different from the optimism of 4 years earlier. High inflation, high interest rates, high gas prices, the Iran Hostage Crisis and the Olympic boycott have left Carter tremendously unpopular.
Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts had run against him in the primaries, and although he had failed -- questions about his personal life had a lot to do with that -- the speech he gives on August 12 leaves a lot of Democrats thinking that they may have nominated the wrong guy.
A Boston Red Sox fan getting a standing ovation in New York.
To make matters worse, on the last night, when it was time to do the traditional gesture of all the defeated candidates onstage with the victorious nominee with their arms raised in unity, Carter looked like he was chasing Kennedy around the stage. Carter lost in a landslide to former Governor Ronald Reagan of California.
December 12, 1981: AC/DC, in support of For Those About to Rock We Salute You.
Brian Johnson and Angus Young
January 1, 1982: Within the fictional world of the Rocky movies, in Rocky III, this is the date on which Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) reclaims the Heavyweight Championship of the World, by knocking James "Clubber" Lang (Mr. T) out in the 3rd round. This is the only fight of Rocky's career that is specifically mentioned as having been held at The Garden.
March 9, 1983: The Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament is played at The Garden for the 1st time, with a preliminary round game: Seton Hall University, of nearby South Orange, New Jersey, beating Providence College 73-64. The New York Tri-State Area beating New England? I can live with that.
March 12, 1983: St. John's, playing at its home-away-from-home, wins the Tournament, beating Boston College in the Final, 85-77. New York City beating Boston? I can live with that.
June 16, 1983: On his 32nd birthday, former Welterweight Champion Roberto Durán, 2 1/2 years after telling Sugar Ray Leonard, "No más," becomes a champion again. He faces Super Welterweight Champion Davey Moore, and by the 8th round, has him so badly cut that referee Ernesta Magana has to stop the fight -- after Moore's wife and mother, seated at ringside, had both fainted.
August 4 & 5, 1984: The Jacksons, with Michael at the Thriller-inspired peak of his popularity, on their Victory Tour.
It was all downhill from here.
March 9, 1985: This was the zenith season for the Big East Conference. When it ended, 3 of the teams in the Final Four were from the Big East: St. John's, Villanova University of the Philadelphia suburbs, and Georgetown University of Washington, D.C.
On January 26, St. John's, coached by Lou Carnsecca and led by Chris Mullin, Bill Wennington, Mark Jackson and Walter Berry, had been ranked Number 2. Georgetown, coached by John Thompson and led by Patrick Ewing, was defending National Champions and still ranked Number 1. But the Redmen (not yet rebranded as the Red Storm) went into the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, and beat the Hoyas 66-65 in a game nationally televised on CBS.
The rematch at The Garden, on February 27, was a different story, as Georgetown announced their freakin' presence with authority and took no prisoners, 85-69. But there would be a 3rd game, in the Big East Tournament Final, on March 9, at The Garden, with Georgetown again ranked 1st and St. John's 2nd, and again, it would be on CBS. Georgetown won again, 92-80.
It still wasn't over. As I said, both teams reached the Final Four, and, at the Semifinal at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, on March 30, Georgetown won 77-59. St. John's finished 31-4, with 3 of the losses being to Georgetown. The other loss was on December 15, 1984, to Niagara University in Lewiston, New York.
It was a magnificent season, the most wins they've ever had in a season (a mark they tied the next season, going 31-5), and their best season, percentage-wise, since 1930-31 (21-1). But while they won the Lapchick Memorial and ECAC Holiday Festival Tournaments at the beginning of the season, and won the regular-season title in the Big East outright, it could have been so much more. (Famously, Georgetown lost the Final to Villanova. St. John's hasn't won the Big East regular-season title outright since, although they have tied for it twice.)
March 31, 1985: The 1st WrestleMania is held by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The organization (renamed World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, in 2002) would hold its 10th and 20th events at The Garden, in 1994 and 2004, respectively; and the 1st, 4th and 11th SummerSlam events at The Garden, in 1988, 1991 and 1998.
June 10, 1985: Madonna, on her Virgin Tour. Or so to speak.
August 1 & 2, 1985: Tina Turner, completing her comeback, on her Private Dancer Tour.
May 20, 1986: Mike Tyson, in a rarity for him in the early stages of his career, needs to go the distance to win a fight. In his Garden debut, he goes the full 10 rounds against Mitch "Blood" Green, to make it 21-0 for his career. Six months later, Tyson won his 1st piece of the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
Two years later, Green found Tyson on a Harlem street, and, frustrated that he'd never gotten a rematch, started a fight. Tyson broke Green's nose, but also his own hand in the process. And that was as close as Green ever got to a rematch.
August 3 & 4, 1986: Prince plays The Garden for the 1st time, on his Parade Tour.
September 28 & 29, 1987: U2 play The Garden for the 1st time, on The Joshua Tree Tour. Warmup acts: Fellow Irishmen The Pogues, and Steven Van Zandt's side project from the E Street Band, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul.
The Edge of U2
April 10, 1989: R.E.M. play The Garden for the 1st time, on their Green Tour. Opening act: Indigo Girls.
December 11, 12, 14 & 15, 1989: Paul McCartney, in support of Flowers In the Dirt.
July 23, 1991: Whitney Houston, in support of I'm Your Baby Tonight.
After the 1991 renovation. No more Blue Seats.
Purple and aqua, but not blue.
December 9, 10 & 13, 1991: Guns N' Roses, in support of Use Your Illusion.
July 13, 14, 15 & 16, 1992: The Democratic Convention returns to The Garden. Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas is nominated for President, Senator Al Gore of Tennessee for Vice President.
Democratic nominees had tried to sound optimistic before, but none had been able to pull it off since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 -- and because of Vietnam, Democrats didn't want to remember LBJ, despite all his domestic achievements, so this was the 1st Democratic Convention that anybody wanted to remember since 1960.
Al Gore and Bill Clinton. It was an unusual pose:
Usually, the Presidential nominee poses on the left.
October 16, 1992: Columbia Records hosts the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert -- or, as participant Neil Young called it, "Bobfest." And what a show it was. It may have been the greatest array of musical talent ever brought together for one show in one building.
The house band consisted of Booker T. & the M.G.'s, with Jim Keltner and World's Most Dangerous Band member Anton Fig filling in for the late Al Jackson Jr. on drums, plus G.E. Smith of the Saturday Night Live Band. Kris Kristofferson, himself one of America's greatest songwriters, was master of ceremonies.
John Mellencamp kicked it off with perhaps Dylan's greatest song, "Like a Rolling Stone." One by one, some serious legends came, each playing a Dylan song or two: including Stevie Wonder (singing the gospel-inflected version of "Blowin' in the Wind" that he hit with in 1966), Lou Reed, June Carter and Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Johnny Winter (whose version of "Highway 61" was particularly blistering), Richie Havens (whose acoustic version of "Just Like a Woman" was epic), Neil Young (who blitzed through "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and made absolutely nobody miss Jimi Hendrix with "All Along the Watchtower"), Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, Eric Clapton (who totally tore the place up with a bluesy rendition of "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right"), George Harrison, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, and Roger McGuinn of the Byrds.
The younger generation got in on the act, too: Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready, Tracy Chapman, and a performance of "You Ain't Going Nowhere" by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Shawn Colvin, and Johnny's daughter (and June's stepdaughter) Roseanne Cash.
George Harrison introduced Bob, and the big question everybody had was, "What's Bob going to do?" Was he going to say something controversial? Was he not going to be understandable as he sang? There was no issue with him: He sang, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," and he was on his game. In turn, the 6 verses of "My Back Pages" were sung by McGuinn, Petty, Young, Clapton, Dylan and Harrison. Bob closed with "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Girl from the North Country."
Left to right: Ron Wood, George Harrison,
Johnny Cash, Roger McGuinn and Bob Dylan
I still have most of this concert from the WNEW-FM broadcast. To me, it sounds better than any other recording of it.
December 23, 1992: My 1st live NHL game. The Rangers jumped out to a 4-1 lead on the Devils, but New Jersey came roaring back, tied it up, and Stéphane Richer won it in overtime, 5-4. Wearing Devils gear, and surrounded by 18,000 Ranger fans, I got out of The Garden in a hurry.
December 10, 1993: Mariah Carey plays The Garden for the 1st time, in her Music Box Tour.
December 17, 18, 22, 23 & 31, 1993: Janet Jackson plays The Garden for the 1st time, with Tony! Toni! Tone! as opening act.
May 22, 1994: As it turned out, home-court advantage meant everything. The Knicks have played the Chicago Bulls in the Playoffs 7 times, and have only had home-court advantage once. Guess which one they won. They lost in 1981, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1996, all but the 1st being during the tenure of Michael Jordan.
The 1 they won was in 1994, winning the 1st 2 games at The Garden, dropping the next 2 at Chicago Stadium, winning Game 5 at The Garden, losing Game 6 at Chicago Stadium (the last competitive sporting event in that arena's 65-year history), and winning Game 7 at The Garden, 87-77. At last, they had beaten the Bulls. Of course, this was during Michael Jordan's hiatus...
May 27, 1994: The Rangers clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup Finals, beating the Devils in double overtime in Game 7, on a goal by Stéphane Matteau, after team Captain Mark Messier had guaranteed a win in Game 6 at the Meadowlands and backed it up.
This was hockey's version of the Bobby Thomson Game. No, the combatants weren't quite in the same city, like the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants were in 1951, or even in the same State. But let the record show that it's only 8 miles between Madison Square Garden and the Meadowlands complex, while it's 15 miles between the sites of Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds.
June 14, 1994: May 20 to June 30, 1994 was the month (and change) for The Garden. It had already hosted the win over the Bulls, Messier's guarantee, and the Matteau goal. Now, it was time for the Stanley Cup Finals, the Rangers' 1st such berth in 15 years, on May 31, and on June 2, 9 and 14 -- the last of these being the Rangers' 1st Stanley Cup clincher in 54 years, and their 1st ever on home ice. (They won in Montreal in 1928, and in Toronto in 1933 and 1940.)
I hate this picture.
June 17, 1994: The Garden hosted the NBA Finals, the Knicks' 1st such berth in 21 years, on June 12, 15 and 17 -- the last of these being the night of O.J. Simpson's Bronco ride. (The Knicks lost Game 7 in Houston on June 22.)
Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon. It had been 10 years
since they faced each other for the National Championship:
Ewing for Georgetown, Olajuwon for the University of Houston.
This time, Hakeem got revenge.
June 20, 23, 26, 28 & 30, 1994: Brooklyn native Barbra Streisand came home to do some concerts, in spite of her legendary stage fright. She did 2 more on July 10 and 12.
December 25, 1994: As part of the annual NBA Christmas Day doubleheader (now a tripleheader), the Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls 107-104 in overtime. Of course, this was during Michael Jordan's hiatus...
March 26, 1995: Seinfeld airs the episode "The Face Painter." David Puddy (Patrick Warburton), a Devils fan, makes an ass of himself in front of Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld), Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) and his girlfriend Elaine Benes (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as the Devils beat the Rangers in Game 1 of a Playoff series. Richer scores the opening goal. He hated the Rangers so much, he even scored against them in fiction.
Nobody mentions the fact that the Rangers had beaten the Devils in the previous season's Conference Finals and gone on to win the Cup. This leads me to believe that the episode takes place during that series.
March 28, 1995: "I'm back," Jordan said, and he dropped 55 points on the Knicks at The Garden. Da Bulls needed all of them, as the Knicks hung tough, and the Bulls won 113-111.
October 1 & 2, 1995: Jacky Cheung performs. The most popular Asian singer of the 1990s, he is a legend of Cantopop (singing in Cantonese, the language of his native Hong Kong and much of southern China) and Mandopop (singing in Mandarin, the language spoken by more people than any other in the world), but he also sang in English that night.
Cheung made it possible for other Asian performers to make it big in America, including J-pop (Japanese) and K-pop (Korean) acts.
December 30 & 31, 1995: Phish hold the 1st of several New Year's Eve shows at The Garden.
July 11, 1996: Andrew Golota was 28-0. Riddick Bowe, former Heavyweight Champion, was 38-1, and had recently ended his trilogy with Evander Holyfield, the only man ever to beat him (or even to knock him down), with a TKO win. They fought at The Garden, and Golota appeared to be winning easily, as Bowe looked out of shape.
But Golota blew it, landing several low blows. Referee Wayne Kelly warned him, and assessed 3 separate point deductions. Finally, in the 7th round, Kelly disqualified Golota and declared Bowe the winner.
Bowe's cornermen jumped into the ring and started throwing punches themselves, at Golota and his cornermen. When it was all broken up, Golota cornerman Lou Duva, 15 fans and 9 policemen had been hospitalized, and 16 people had been arrested. It is the biggest riot in the history of any building named Madison Square Garden.
They fought again, 5 months later, at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Again, Golota was winning. Again, he got disqualified for low blows. The Shore crowd, however, accepted the decision, and did not riot. From the 1st fight with Bowe onward, the formerly undefeated Golota went 13-9-1.
June 29, 1997: The WNBA debuts at The Garden, as the New York Liberty play their 1st home game. (The Libs, and indeed the league, had debuted in Los Angeles, with a win over the host Sparks.) They beat the Phoenix Mercury 65-57, the 4th of 7 straight wins to open their history.
Teresa Weatherspoon
Unfortunately, they lost the Finals to the Houston Comets, and are now 0-4 in WNBA Finals. They are the only surviving original WNBA franchise not to have won a Championship.
Their mascot is a dog with a Statue of Liberty crown, named Maddie -- short for "Madison Square Garden." Something I've never gotten: Calling a woman a "dog" means she's ugly, but calling her a "fox" means she's gorgeous. Dogs and foxes aren't quite the same animal, but they're close.
As a result of the renovation known as "The Garden Transformed," taking place during the Knicks' and Rangers' off-seasons, the Liberty played their 2011, '12 and '13 seasons at the Prudential Center in Newark, before returning to The Garden for 2014.
(UPDATE: In 2018, they moved to the Westchester County Center in White Plains, Westchester County, New York. In 2019, Joseph Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, bought the Liberty, and moved them to the Nets' arena, the Barclays Center.)
July 29, 1997: Celine Dion performs, with The Corrs as the opening act.
July 1, 1998: The Spice Girls -- down to 4 following the departure of Geri Halliwell -- make their 1st Garden appearance, as part of their Spiceworld Tour.
March 13, 1999: The biggest fight at The Garden since Ali-Frazier I, 28 years earlier, is a fiasco. It is supposed to unify the Heavyweight Championship, with WBA and IBF titleholder Evander Holyfield fighting WBC titleholder Lennox Lewis.
Nearly every observer thought Lewis had the fight won, solidly. The judges didn't see it that way: One scored it 116-113 for Lewis, one 115-113 for Holyfield, the other a 115-115 draw, and so it went into the books as a draw. The crowd booed the hell out of the announcement. (If they had simply totaled the points, Lewis would have had a 344-343 win.) Eight months later, in Las Vegas, Lewis settled things, winning by a unanimous decision.
July 27, 1999: Bob Dylan and Paul Simon do a show together.
December 31, 1999: Appropriately, the act that closes out the Millennium at The Garden is the King of New York, Billy Joel.
September 29, 2001: The 1st big event at The Garden after the 9/11 attacks was a fight for the Middleweight Championship of the World. WBC and IBF Champion Bernard Hopkins (39-2-1), approaching his 37th birthday, defends the title against WBA Champion Félix Trinidad (40-0), only 28.
It's no contest. B-Hop shows why his nickname is "the Executioner," dominating the fight before knocking the courageous Trinidad down in the 12th round, before Félix Sr., his trainer and a former featherweight boxer himself, gets into the ring and stops it.
October 22, 2001: The Concert for New York City was played just 6 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, and emotions were still running deep. Most of the all-invitee audience was cops, firemen, rescue workers, and people who had lost family members in the attacks, many of them holding up photos of the victims.
Every act was introduced by a non-singing celebrity, including Billy Crystal (the MC for the night), Harrison Ford, Susan Sarandon, Jerry Seinfeld and Michael J. Fox. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro introduced a short film by Martin Scorcese, Halle Berry one by Spike Lee, John Cusack one by Woody Allen, Jon Bon Jovi doing one for New Jersey with one by Kevin Smith.
Comedy routines were done by Crystal, Adam Sandler as his SNL character Operaman, Jimmy Fallon, and Will Ferrell in character as George W. Bush. The real Bush didn't show up, but there were speeches by real politicians: Former President Bill Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, Governor George Pataki, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
The big thing, of course, was the music. David Bowie, accompanied only by himself on bongos, opened the show with Simon & Garfunkel's "America," then did his own "Heroes" with a full band. The performers included Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Destiny's Child (including Beyoncé), Eric Clapton & Buddy Guy, James Taylor, John Mellencamp & Kid Rock, and Janet Jackson.
Billy Joel was a little bit of a problem. He showed up drunk, and went into rehab not long thereafter. Of course, he played "New York State of Mind." But first, he played "Miami 2017." On September 10, 2001, it looked like the apocalypse he'd predicted for The City in 1976 had been prevented. But on the 11th, it came far too close to reality: "I watched the mighty skyline fall" -- although it was the World Trade Center, not the Empire State Building, that real life saw "laid low." He later joined Elton John, who had played his New Yorker-themed "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters," for a performance of Elton's "Your Song."
Melissa Etheridge's microphone went out during her acoustic performance of "Come to My Window," but everybody was singing along anyway, and none of those hard-edged, blue-collar cops and firemen gave a damn that she was openly gay. Her mike went out again as she did an acoustic version of Springsteen's "Born to Run" -- and nobody flinched as she sang lines of love and passion to a woman named Wendy.
"Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims,
and strap your hands 'cross my engines!"
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones sang "Salt of the Earth" and "Miss You" (with its reference to walking through Central Park in the '70s). When they were done, Mick said, "If there's one thing we've learned from all this, it's that you don't fuck with New York!" True. And nobody gave a damn that he uttered a profanity.
The Who came out, with Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey filling in on drums for the late Keith Moon, and it turned out to be bass player John Entwistle's last performance. They did a nasty "Who Are You," an intense "Baba O'Riley," a melancholy "Behind Blue Eyes," and a roaring "Won't Get Fooled Again." Crystal said, "I'd never seen The Who live before. It was great to see these middle-aged men get out on stage and kick ass.
March 15, 2002: After 8 years of doing "Face to Face" tours together, Billy and Elton play their 1st joint show at The Garden. As it turns out, "Piano Man" works out very well as an Elton song, and "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" works equally well as a Billy song.
April 12, 2004: The Verizon Ladies First Tour features Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott and Tamia.
Alicia and Beyoncé
August 30 & 31, & September 1 & 2, 2004: The Republicans, showing no shame, hold their Convention at The Garden, just 3 miles from the site of the World Trade Center, whose destruction their policies failed to prevent. They renominated George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Laura & George Bush, Dick & Lynne Cheney
Among the speakers justifying their polices in the War On Terror and the Iraq War is former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, doing so very aggressively: "Saddam Hussein, himself, is a weapon of mass destruction!" Only Governor George Pataki, in a very calm, mournful speech on the last night, even mentions the still at-large Osama bin Laden.
A real low point came when Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder-turned-actor who got himself elected Governor of California in a process too stupid to describe here, did something that no Republican Convention speaker had done since 1972: He got the delegates to cheer the mention of the name of Richard Nixon.
September 20, 2005: When New York was attacked by a force of man, virtually every major city in the world stepped up to help, including New Orleans. When New Orleans was attacked by a force of nature 4 years later, virtually every major city in the world stepped up to help, including New York. The show was named "From the Big Apple to the Big Easy."
About $9 million was raised, including for charities involving 4 different Presidents: The Bush Clinton Katrina Fund, and Jimmy Carter's house-building and house-restoring Habitat for Humanity, much-needed down there. Let the record show that the Trump Organization contributed nothing.
The list of performers wasn't as big as for the shows for 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, but there were some big ones. A star since 1957, Clarence "Frogman" Henry took his funny novelty song and made it massively relevant to the Crescent City's situation: "Ain't Got No Home."
He was one of several New Orleans-based (or, at least, Louisiana-based) performers that also included Dave Bartholomew (bandleader for Fats Domino, who for 2 days was missing and thought lost in the hurricane), Allen Toussaint, the Dixie Cups, Irma Thomas, the Neville Brothers, Buckwheat Zydeco, and the Meters.
From outside New Orleans came Elton John, John Fogerty, Bette Midler, Elvis Costello and his wife Diana Krall, Jimmy Buffett, Ry Cooder, Lenny Kravitz, and a rare Simon & Garfunkel reunion.
January 22, 2006: I attended this Devils-Rangers game. I had a fantastic seat, at the back of the 200 Level (it cost me $130 from a scalper), but the view was great. Aside from the escalator towers and the narrow corridors, which I consider to be minor complaints, I have no problem with The Garden itself, or even with the company running it. It's the regulars I can't stand.
But these guys were already three sheets to the wind when I got in, and they were cursing out everybody on the ice except the Czech Rangers. They even cursed out the Devils' Captain at the time, the Czech-born Patrik Eliáš. In Czech, so most of the players they were yelling at couldn't understand a word they said anyway!
If that had been the worst of it, I would mark it down as typical Ranger fan stupidity, part of "the price of doing business," and no big deal. But no. These guys got so rowdy that a couple across the aisle from them told them repeatedly to stop. And what did they do? Their leader, the first in their row, got up, and shoved the wife of the couple across from them. He shoved a woman. Who was also wearing a Ranger jersey! He shoved a woman rooting for the same team!
Fortunately, the husband, also wearing a Ranger jersey, showed that some Ranger fans have brains: He chose not to take on four big, agitated drunks at once. He called an usher, and the four drunk Czechs were deported from The Garden. Fair play to that couple, and to the Garden ushers.
September 7 & 8, 2006: Shakira plays The Garden for the 1st time.
March 25, 2007: On his 60th birthday, Elton John plays his 60th Garden show.
June 9, 2007: Miguel Cotto retains the WBA Welterweight Championship by knocking Zab Judah out in the 11th round. It is the last fight in the original Garden ring -- well, perhaps not "original," but the next-best thing to it: It had been used since right after the opening of the Old Garden, December 1, 1925.
That ring had hosted Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, Joes Louis and Frazier, Henry Armstrong, Sugar Rays Robinson and Leonard, Rockys Graziano and Marciano, Floyd Patterson, The Greatest under the name Cassius Clay and under the name Muhammad Ali, Roberto Durán, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. 82 years.
So why retire the ring? Because it took 4 hours to put it together, and it's 18 1/2 feet square, too small by modern standards. Most fighters now insist on a ring of at least 20 feet. The ring has been sent to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, outside Syracuse -- somewhat appropriately, in Madison County, New York.
August 24, 25 & 26, 2009: Already a star for 10 years, Britney Spears plays The Garden for the 1st time, with Jordin Sparks as the warmup act.
August 27, 2009: Taylor Swift plays The Garden for the 1st time, with Kellie Pickler as the warmup act.
December 12, 2012: When Hurricane Katrina wrecked New Orleans on August 29, 2005, a fundraising concert was held at MSG. When Hurricane Sandy pounded New York and New Jersey on October 29, 2012, a fundraising concert at MSG was inevitable.
If that had been the worst of it, I would mark it down as typical Ranger fan stupidity, part of "the price of doing business," and no big deal. But no. These guys got so rowdy that a couple across the aisle from them told them repeatedly to stop. And what did they do? Their leader, the first in their row, got up, and shoved the wife of the couple across from them. He shoved a woman. Who was also wearing a Ranger jersey! He shoved a woman rooting for the same team!
Fortunately, the husband, also wearing a Ranger jersey, showed that some Ranger fans have brains: He chose not to take on four big, agitated drunks at once. He called an usher, and the four drunk Czechs were deported from The Garden. Fair play to that couple, and to the Garden ushers.
March 25, 2007: On his 60th birthday, Elton John plays his 60th Garden show.
June 9, 2007: Miguel Cotto retains the WBA Welterweight Championship by knocking Zab Judah out in the 11th round. It is the last fight in the original Garden ring -- well, perhaps not "original," but the next-best thing to it: It had been used since right after the opening of the Old Garden, December 1, 1925.
That ring had hosted Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, Joes Louis and Frazier, Henry Armstrong, Sugar Rays Robinson and Leonard, Rockys Graziano and Marciano, Floyd Patterson, The Greatest under the name Cassius Clay and under the name Muhammad Ali, Roberto Durán, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis. 82 years.
So why retire the ring? Because it took 4 hours to put it together, and it's 18 1/2 feet square, too small by modern standards. Most fighters now insist on a ring of at least 20 feet. The ring has been sent to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, outside Syracuse -- somewhat appropriately, in Madison County, New York.
August 24, 25 & 26, 2009: Already a star for 10 years, Britney Spears plays The Garden for the 1st time, with Jordin Sparks as the warmup act.
August 27, 2009: Taylor Swift plays The Garden for the 1st time, with Kellie Pickler as the warmup act.
"The Garden Transformed": At least they kept that iconic ceiling.
July 6, 7 & 9, 2010: Lady Gaga brings her Monsters Ball Tour to The Garden. The New York native was in the first throes of, as she put it, "The Fame," and, while her fans were already insanely devoted, everyone else thought she was this strangely-dressed (sometimes barely-dressed) freak who flipped the bird at photographers at baseball games and couldn't sing without autotune.
She has since proven that she doesn't need autotune, and has become a pop-culture heroine on multiple levels.
By Gaga's standards, this is formal dress.
August 12, 2010: Rihanna brings her Last Girl On Earth Tour in.
August 31, 2010: Justin Bieber welcomes fans to "My World."
November 16, 2011: Katy Perry brings her California Dreams Tour in, with Ellie Goulding as the opening act.
"I don't care what consequence it brings.
I have been a fool for lesser things."
As with the Concert for New York City, there were nonsinging celebrities on hand. Returning from that show were Crystal, Sarandon, Sandler, Shaffer and Fallon. Among the musical performers who had also been at the CFNYC were McCartney, Jagger and Richards (who brought the rest of the current Stones lineup with them), The Who's Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend, Joel, Clapton, Bon Jovi and Vedder.
"Sprung from cages on Highway 9":
Sayreville's Jon and Freehold's Bruce
Among those new to this show were Springsteen -- one of the few bills he's ever shared with Joel -- Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Chris Martin of Coldplay; and nonmusical personalities Whoopi Goldberg, Kristen Stewart, Jon Stewart (no relation), not Bill or Hillary but Chelsea Clinton, Stephen Colbert, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Olivia Wilde, James Gandolfini, Chris Rock, Seth Meyers, Blake Lively, Katie Holmes, Jason Sudeikis, and Quentin Tarantino and his Django Unchained stars Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz.
March 22, 2013: Already a star for 13 years, Pink plays The Garden for the 1st time.
She'll be back on April 4 and 5 of this year.
January 7, 2014: Joel becomes The Garden's 1st "music franchise," performing one concert there each month, not an unreasonable schedule for a man about to turn 65. He has now played the arena more times than any other performer: 95. Presuming no illness or tragedy, he'll make it an even 100 concerts on June 2, 2018.
UPDATE: I was a little off. BJ-MSG-100 was on July 18, 2018.
March 28 & 30, 2014: The New Garden hosts NCAA Tournament basketball for the 1st time, 46 years into its history. The Old Garden had hosted 71 NCAA Tournament games, including 7 Final Fours, but that all came to an end with the point-shaving scandal of 1951. The Brendan Byrne Arena had hosted the Final Four in 1996, but that was New Jersey, not New York; it was the Meadowlands, not The Garden.
The Regional Semifinal (the Sweet 16) saw Michigan State University beat the University of Virginia 61-59, and the University of Connecticut (a.k.a. UConn) beat Iowa State 81-76. In the Final, UConn beat MSU 60-54. UConn went on to beat Kentucky in the Final in Dallas (well, Arlington).
March 20 & 21, 2015: Ariana Grande plays The Garden for the 1st time.
September 25, 2015: Pope Francis delivers Mass in his 1st visit to the U.S. since accepting the Papacy.
Pope Francis delivers a communion chalice to
Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York
July 15, 2016: 5 Seconds of Summer plays The Garden for the 1st time.
August 4, 5, 6 & 8, 2016: A dual bill, with Drake and Future each making their Garden debut.
August 13, 2016: Halsey, a native of Washington, Warren County, New Jersey, plays The Garden for the 1st time, bringing in her Badlands Tour.
"You can find me in the Kingdom"
September 19, 20, 22, 23, 25 & 26, 2016: Adele says, "Hello" in her Garden debut.
She's a big star.
October 25, 2016: Carrie Underwood makes her official Garden debut, with her Storyteller Tour. I say her "official debut," since she'd been in there a few times before, cheering on her husband, hockey player Mike Fisher. Which means her married name is Carrie Fisher.
March 7, 2017: Brace yourself: The Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience is staged. "Disney On Parade," it ain't.
Unlike dragons, direwolves, three-eyed ravens and White Walkers,
this is a thing that actually exists.
Music events already scheduled for 2018 include Romeo Santos for February 16 & 17, Justin Timberlake on March 21 & 22, Pink on April 4 & 5, Bon Jovi on May 9 & 10, Def Leppard & Journey on June 13, Hall & Oates and Train on June 14, Harry Styles on June 21 & 22, U2 on June 25 & 26 & July 1, Foo Fighters on July 16 & 17, Rod Stewart & Cyndi Lauper on August 7, Shakira on August 10, Electric Light Orchestra on August 21 & 22, Game of Thrones Live on October 3, Maroon 5 on October 14 & 15; and Elton John's Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour, on October 18 & 19, and November 8 & 9.
*
The World's Most Famous Arena is 50 years old. It is easily the oldest sports facility currently used by any of the major league teams in the New York Tri-State Area. The next-oldest is, shockingly, the Prudential Center in Newark, and that building just celebrated its 10th Anniversary.
The Garden is also the oldest active arena in the NBA and the NHL, and soon it won't even be close: By the time the Golden State Warriors and Milwaukee Bucks move into new arenas by the 2020-21 season, the next-oldest arena in the NBA will be the Target Center in Minneapolis (1990); and if the Calgary Flames get their way, and a new arena opens within 5 years, the next-oldest NHL arena will be the ones in San Jose and Anaheim (1993).
The future of Madison Square Garden is up in the air -- and that's not a joke about "air rights." The City of New York and the State of New York have deplored the 1968 version of Penn Station from the beginning, and would like to develop a new version, and the Garden building and the Garden Corporation are seen as obstructions to their goal.
The current Garden lease runs through the 2022-23 season. As we have seen, it takes a long time to get a new sports venue built in and around New York. A more likely scenario than a 5th Garden opening in time for the 2023-24 Knicks and Rangers seasons is an extension for Garden IV, followed by a new arena.
By the dawn of the 2030s, there may well be a Garden V, probably to the south and west, where the current Morgan Postal Facility is, bounded by 9th & 10th Avenues, and 28th & 30th Streets -- a location not currently convenient to reach by subway. The 7 Train, extended from Times Square to 34th Street-Hudson Yards in 2015, may end up being extended 1 more stop as part of the preparation -- and, knowing the MTA, it might end up costing more than the new arena.
But, one way or another, Madison Square Garden will continue as a New York institution, as it has since 1879, and at its current facility for half a century.
Tex's Rangers...sounds kind of familiar.
ReplyDeleteHaving just stayed at the New Yorker (from the UK) it was great to read about the history of this iconic venue. We’ll have to agree to differ on your opinion of Led Zeppelin- millions of Americans would disagree too.
ReplyDelete