September 26, 1995, 30 years ago: The Boston Garden hosts its last sporting event. It is an NHL exhibition game, and the Boston Bruins beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-0.
The Boston Madison Square Garden opened on November 17, 1928, on top of North Station, in Boston's North End. It was the 1st of 6 copies of Madison Square Garden in New York that boxing promoter and MSG owner George "Tex" Rickard had planned to build around the country. But Rickard died early in 1929, and this would be the only one that got built.
The 1st event was a boxing card. Three days later, the NHL's Boston Bruins played their 1st game there, losing to the Montreal Canadiens, 1-0. Sylvio Mantha scored the arena's 1st goal, at the end of the 2nd period. In 1934, the Madison Square Garden Corporation sold the building to the Boston Garden-Arena Corporation, which was bought out by Delaware North Corporation in 1975. From 1934 onward, it was "the Boston Garden," or, in the Boston accent, "the Gah-den."
The NBA was founded in 1946, and the Boston Celtics took up residence there. Both the Celtics and the Bruins remained in the Garden until 1995. From 1955 to 1995, the Beanpot Tournament was held, between 4 local college hockey teams: Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern University and Harvard. In 1978, a blizzard during the Tournament trapped fans inside the Garden. At least there were bathrooms and food, and the food was given out for free until plows could arrive to get the exits accessible.
The Bruins won the Stanley Cup in their 1st season there, 1929; and again in 1939, 1941, 1970 and 1972. The Celtics won the NBA Championship in 1957, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1974, 1976, 1981, 1984 and 1986.
In total, there were 19 NBA Finals and 16 Stanley Cup Finals played at the Boston Garden. In 1957 and 1958, both leagues' finals were held there.
There were lots of prizefights there, but never one for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. The rematch between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston was supposed to be there, on November 16, 1964. But 3 days before, Ali developed a hernia. Re-set for May 25, 1965, concerns over both Ali and Liston led City officials to drop sanction for the fight, and it was moved to Lewiston, Maine.
Since the Garden was designed by Rickard, the seating was set up primarily for boxing. It was not especially good for basketball or hockey. The NHL standard for rink size is 200 feet long by 85 feet wide, but that had not yet been put in place. The Garden's rink was only 191 by 83, and this smaller size gave rise to the rough-house style favored by the team that became known as "the Big Bad Bruins" and later "the Lunch Pail Athletic Club." And for all the advantages the Garden gave his Celtics, longtime coach and general manager Arnold "Red" Auerbach hated the place, saying it was bad for basketball because, "The seating's all cockeyed."
I only saw one event there, and had both horizontal and vertical obstruction: Under the upper-deck overhang and behind a pole.
The Garden hosted political rallies, including hometown hero John F. Kennedy having his Election Eve rally there on November 7, 1960. Despite Boston being America's most Catholic city, the Garden hosted rallies not just by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in 1953, but by evangelical Protestants Aimee Semple McPherson in 1931, Billy Graham in 1950, and Jimmy Swaggart in 1983.
And there were concerts. It was 1 of only 16 buildings to have hosted both The Beatles (on September 12, 1964) and Elvis Presley (on November 10, 1971). The most important concert there came on April 5, 1968. The day before, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Many American cities broke out into riots. James Brown -- already one of America's biggest African-American singers, but a few months away from writing and recording "Say It Loud -- I'm Black and I'm Proud" -- was scheduled to perform at the Garden.
Kevin White, Mayor for just 3 months, was told he should cancel the concert, for fear that the mostly-black audience would riot. But he knew that a riot was more likely if the concert was canceled. He talked to Brown, and an idea was hatched: The concert would be broadcast live on public TV station WGBH-Channel 2, and anyone who didn't have a ticket was urged to stay home and watch it on TV. The concert went off without a hitch.
Other notable concerts included a "battle of the bands" between the orchestras of Rudy Vallée and Benny Goodman in 1938; an Alan Freed Show in 1956, the arena's 1st rock concert; a 1972 show where Stevie Wonder opened for The Rolling Stones, and had to play for hours because the Stones had been detained in Rhode Island, and needed Mayor White's intervention to get them to Boston, arriving around Midnight; several shows by New Englanders Aerosmith and The J. Geils Band; and, more than any other act, 24 times from 1973 to 1994, The Grateful Dead.
The Garden seated 14,890 for basketball, and 14,448 for hockey. From 1975 onward, the Celtics played a few home games per year at the slightly larger Hartford Civic Center in Connecticut -- except for 1978 to 1980, when the Civic Center's roof collapsed and had to be repaired.
There was no air-conditioning in the Garden, leading to the famous scene of Los Angeles Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar needing oxygen on the bench during Game 5 of the 1984 NBA Finals. And there were power outages during the Stanley Cup Finals of 1988 and 1990.
A new arena was badly needed. Massachusetts, and especially Boston, politics being what they are, it took a while to secure funding. Finally, in 1993, construction began on the replacement, still on Causeway Street above North Station, but behind the Garden.
The last Celtic game was on May 5, 1995, Game 4 of the 1st Round of the NBA Playoffs, losing to the Orlando Magic, 95-92. The last Bruin game that counted was on May 14, 1995, Game 5 of the NHL Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, losing to the New Jersey Devils, 3-2. The last goal was scored by the Bruins' Adam Oates.
On September 26, 1995, a preseason exhibition marked the Garden's last event. The Bruins played the same team they played in the opener, 67 years earlier, the Montreal Canadiens. The Bruins won, 3-0, and Cam Neely scored the real last goal. Afterward, there was "One Final Skate" by Bruin legends, including Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, 1940s legend Milt Schmidt, and current stars Neely, Oates and Ray Bourque.
The Celtics and Bruins moved into the new arena, originally named the FleetCenter, now named the TD Garden. The Bruins' regular-season opener was on October 7, and they played the New York Islanders to a 4-4 tie. The Celtics debuted on November 3, and lost to the Milwaukee Bucks, 101-100. With the extra seats, including extra luxury boxes, the Celtics have never returned to Hartford for a regular-season game, though they have played preseason exhibition games there.
It took until 1998 for the old Garden to be demolished, because, had they not, it would have been ruined anyway due to construction of the tunnel for the new John F. Fitzgerald Expressway and the demolition of the old one, an elevated highway that was such an eyesore, it was nicknamed "Boston's Other Green Monster."
The site of the old Garden is now a retail development named The Hub on Causeway, which opened in 2021.
The TD Garden can just barely be seen
between the two leftmost skyscrapers.
Both teams have since won titles in the new building: The Celtics in 2008 and 2024, and the Bruins in 2011. The Celtics also reached the Finals in 2010 and 2022, the Bruins in 2013 and 2019. The seats are comfortable, there's no obstructed views, the air-conditioning works, and the only ratlike anyone's seen there has been the Bruins' star Brad Marchand.
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