Madison Square Garden (MSG III) was an indoor arena in New York City, the third bearing that name. Built in 1925 and closed in 1968, it was located on the west side of Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th streets in Manhattan, on the site of the city's trolley-car barns. It was the first Garden that was not located near Madison Square. MSG III was the home of the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League and the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association, and also hosted numerous boxing matches, the Millrose Games, the National Invitation Tournament, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, concerts, and other events. In 1968 it was demolished and its role and name passed to the fourth Madison Square Garden, which stands at the site of the original Penn Station. One Worldwide Plaza was built on the arena's former 50th Street location.
History Groundbreaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925."Madison Square Garden III" on Ballparks.com Designed by the theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, it was built at the cost of $4.75 million in 349 days by boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who assembled backers he called his "600 millionaires" to fund the project. The new arena was dubbed "The House That Tex Built."Schumach, Murray (February 14, 1968).Next and Last Attraction at Old Madison Square Garden to Be Wreckers' Ball, The New York Times In contrast to the ornate towers of Stanford White's second Garden, the exterior of MSG III was a simple box. Its most distinctive feature was the ornate marquee above the main entrance, with seemingly endless abbreviations (Tomw., V/S, Rgrs, Tonite, Thru, etc.) Even the name of the arena was abbreviated, to "Madison Sq. Garden".
The arena, which opened on December 15, 1925, was by , with seating on three levels, and a maximum capacity of 18,496 spectators for boxing. 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, John S. Hammond, William F. Carey, General John Reed Kilpatrick, Ned Irish and Irving Mitchell Felt. It was eventually replaced by the fourth Madison Square Garden.
Events
Sports
Boxing Boxing was Madison Square Garden III's principal claim to fame. The first bout took place on December 11, 1925, a week before its official opening, as world light heavyweight champion Paul Berlenbach defended his title against challenger Jack Delaney before more than 22,000 fans."Berlenbach Wins; Defeats Delaney; Retains World's Light Heavyweight Title in 15-Round Bout in the Garden.", The New York Times, December 12, 1925, p.9
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.Baker, Mark A. (2019). Between the Ropes at Madison Square Garden, The History of an Iconic Boxing Ring, 1925-2007. .
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 – Shorty Green of the Americans was the first player to score a goal in the arena. 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. 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. 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. 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. The Original Celtics would also later become an official tenant for this rendition of the Madison Square Garden after previously becoming one in their first two professional basketball league seasons for the second rendition of the Madison Square Garden for the 1927–28 season of the American Basketball League before later leaving due to a combination of not having high crowd results when compared to other cities seeing the Original Celtics play and the ABL wanting to break up the team for being "too strong" against the rest of the league by comparison. The New York Knicks debuted there in 1946, although if there was an important college game, they played in the 69th Regiment Armory. 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 Jimmy Walker's Unemployment Relief Fund. In 1934, Ned Irish began promoting a successful series of college basketball double headers at the Garden featuring a mix of local and national teams. MSG III began hosting the National Invitation Tournament annually in 1938, and hosted seven NCAA men's basketball championship finals between 1943 and 1950. On February 28, 1940, Madison Square Garden hosted the first televised basketball games in a Fordham-Pitt and Georgetown-NYU doubleheader. A point shaving scandal involving games played at the Garden led the NCAA to reduce its use of the Garden, and caused some schools, including 1950 NCAA and NIT Champion City College of New York (CCNY), to be banned from playing there.Nat Holman: The Man, His Legacy and CCNY."The 1951 Basketball Scandal" - The City College Library - City College of New York.
Professional wrestling Capitol Wrestling Corporation—along with its successor, the World Wide Wrestling Federation—promoted professional wrestling at the Garden during its last two decades. Toots Mondt and Jess McMahon owned CWC, which initially promoted tag team wrestling. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Mondt and McMahon were successful at promoting ethnic heroes of Puerto Rican or Italian descent.
Two historic wrestling events took place at MSG III. On May 17, 1963, Bruno Sammartino defeated "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, via submission, in 48 seconds, to become the second ever WWWF World Heavyweight Champion. On November 19, 1957, the Dr. Jerry Graham & Dick the Bruiser vs. Edouard Carpentier & Argentina Rocca main event led to a race riot involving Italian and Puerto Rican fans of Carpentier and Rocca. After the riot, New York City nearly banned professional wrestling and children under the age of 14 were prohibited from attending.
Cycling 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 moved to the third Garden in 1926 where it opened each spring for about a four-week engagement. The circus was a wildly popular (and profitable) event which performed as often as three times daily throughout the life of the third Garden. The circus arrangement was so important to the Garden's schedule that it took priority over Rangers and Knicks playoff games and required both teams to find alternate sites. While the Knicks were able to play at the 69th Regiment Armory elsewhere in Manhattan, the Blueshirts were regularly forced to look further afield and decamp to other NHL cities if they advanced to a Stanley Cup final; indeed their first Cup win in 1928 was played entirely at the Montreal Forum, home ice of the opposing Montreal Maroons.Even at the fourth Garden, games would sometimes have to begin as late as 9:00 p.m. to accommodate the circus.
The circus acrobatics included acts in the rings, on the high wire, and trapeze. In the early 1930s wild animal trainer Clyde Beatty was a featured performer during the circus engagements in New York and Boston before returning to the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus for a tour under canvas. Many of the most famous clowns in America appeared each year before hundreds of thousands of fans. Among the most famous were sad-faced clown Emmett Kelly as well as Felix Adler and Lou Jacobs.
Dog show The Garden continued to host The Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show. This championship is the third-longest continuously running U.S. sporting event (behind only the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks).
Other events
The very first event held at the third Garden was a six day bicycle race held from Sunday, November 29 to Friday, December 5, 1925, a few weeks before the official opening of the arena."Bikers in Again— Good-By, Sleep", All Week Whirl Starts Tonight in New Garden", Sunday News (New York), November 29, 1925, p.59 Although MSG III never hosted a national political convention (see below), in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued a tradition begun in 1892 by Grover Cleveland, when 22,000 people rallied to support him in his bid for the U.S. presidency. 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.Katznelson, Ira (2013). Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of our Time. New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation. . . During the height of its popularity during the Great Depression, the Communist Party USA held mass rallies which filled the stadium. 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."From Haven to Home" Library of Congress exhibit. Ice skater and film star Sonia Henie brought her Hollywood Ice Review to the Garden in 1938, drawing more than 15,000 fans. 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. In 1940, 13,000 people attended the rodeo, featuring Gene Autry. 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.The New York Times, March 10, 1943.