The Lost "New" Madison Square Garden - 8th Ave between 49th and 50th Streets

 

In 1925 one of Manhattan's--and the country's--great architectural landmarks was demolished.  Madison Square Garden, designed by Stanford White, had stood on the edge of Madison Square since 1890.  The venue was the scene of vast concerts, sporting activities, Wild West Shows, mass meetings and other amusements.  There were restaurants, private dining rooms and galleries as well.

It did not take the colorful boxing promoter George L. "Tex" Rickard long to react.  Even as the old Garden was coming down, he was erecting its replacement, the New Madison Square Garden.  Rickard had recruited a syndicate of investors (he called them his "600 millionaires") to back the project and commissioned the renowned theater architect Thomas W. Lamb to design it.  

Rickard was a consummate marketer and showman and took every advantage in promoting his new venture.  On August 25, 1925 The New York Times reported "The last rivet in the massive steel frame of the new $4,000,000 Madison Square Garden...was driven yesterday by Promoter Tex Rickard, while Harry Lohman, Vice President of J. J. Stewart & Co., builders, held the brass rivet for the hammering of the air gun in Rickard's hands."  

Rickard told reporters that the structure would be opened late in November with a ball, "followed, probably, by a six-day bicycle race commencing at one minute past midnight on the night of November 29."  Rickard was best known for his boxing matches and he was quick to note that the first would be held during the week of December 7.  The New York Times wrote it "will be either a championship battle or a match in which Gene Tunney will compete with a worthy foe."

Lamb's brick and terra-cotta clad structure did not aspire to architectural greatness, looking perhaps more like a factory than an entertainment venue.  The massive arched marquee was its most distinctive aspect.  

Inside, the main arena was capable of seating 20,000.  The building was designed so it was possible to hold two large attractions at a time, with a total capacity of 33,000 persons.  Below the arena floor was an exposition hall "where all varieties of shows can be accommodated simultaneously."  Rickter already had a broad spectrum of  undertakings in mind, including "boxing, hockey, various athletic attractions, horse shows, dog shows, &c., industrial and commercial expositions, professional and political assemblages, balls, concerts, [and] entertainments," according to The New York Times.  The newspaper said "The building is an improvement over the old Garden in every respect.  It has an up-to-date ventilating system, elaborate piping and refrigerating plan for supplying the ice for hockey, which is to be one of the major sports."

That "ventilating system" was important to Rickter, who knew fully well that many (or most) of his boxing fans were smokers.  To accommodate them, according to The New York Times, he had commissioned "an air-cooling system providing for a frequent change of air, which will permit smoking."  

The total cost of construction topped $5.5 million.  That amount would be equal to more than $80 million today.

On November 28, 1925 The New York Times reported "Tex Rickard will see the realization of an ambition tonight.  The new Madison Square Garden, the imposing structure at Eighth Avenue, between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets...will open its doors to the public for the first time."  The six-day bike race which started that evening at 9:00 would predate the official dedication ceremonies by about two weeks.  "Still the new arena does open tonight upon its career as the greatest building of its kind the world over," said the article.

It was an invitation-only event, and the 17,000 people who flocked in that night were most likely less interested in the bikers than in the arena itself.  "Men and women prominent in different walks of life have been invited to see the program," said The Times.  "It will be a gala occasion, indeed."

It was not long before the New York State Athletic Commission snuffed out Tex Rickard's promise to his boxing fans that there would be smoking within the Garden.  Smoking was disallowed in enclosed spaces by the Commission.  Despite Rickard's state-of-the-art ventilation system which cost him the equivalent of $2.2 million today, The Buffalo Times reported on February 19, 1926, "the boxing commission insists that the Garden shall have no privileges not enjoyed by the smaller clubs and the ushers there have been ordered to prevent smoking."

Only months after the Garden's opening, Rickard considered improvements.  On April 3, 1926 The New York Times announced "The promoter further is looking ahead to making the Garden roof a tennis centre...Rickard said that he was making arrangements to install six tennis courts on the roof of the Garden."

In the meantime, Rickard continued to book attractions that would draw thousands.  In 1926 the Barnum & Bailey Circus thrilled crowds and in the fall of 1927 the World Series Rodeo opened.  As preparations for that event were being made on October 1, the rodeo's manager Fred Beebe told reporters "Champions of all the principal preliminary rodeos of the west and Canada will be here and Broadway sure will look like the main street of a wild western town at roundup time long before the opening of the World Series Rodeo on October 25."

The Garden in 1932 (original source unknown)

As early as 1921 Rickard was diagnosed with appendicitis.  But he had what a newspaper called a "dread of surgery."  A few days before Rickard left for Miami Beach on December 26, 1928, Jack Dempsey's former manager stood in his office and told about his recent surgery for a sinus problem.  "You shouldn't ever let them cut you that way," Rickard had replied.

His six years of ignoring his condition caught up with Tex Rickard on New Year's Eve.  He was rushed to a hospital with gangrenous appendicitis.  

Heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey rushed to his bedside.  On the day before his death Rickard told him, "Jack, I've got this fight licked."  At around 6:30 the following morning, according to his doctor, "Just before the coma overcame him, he opened his eyes and said: 'I'm getting a tough break, but I'll fight."  On January 7, 1929 newspapers around the country reported on his death.

Accolades poured in from across the globe.  The New York Times said "Actors, business men, brokers paid tribute to his qualities of character and achievements."  Among them were Mayor James Walker, former New York Governor Alfred Smith, and entertainer George M. Cohan.

Although the Garden may have been best known for its circuses, rodeos and boxing events, it was a 27-year old figure skater who caused the sensation of 1938.  The Highland Democrat reported "The biggest thing on the telephone in the history of showdom, it is generally agreed, was Sonja Henie's ice revue.  She caused her first big telephone jam when at Madison Square Garden...some callers reported trying for two hours before getting through the Garden's switchboard to the box office."  During her 10-day appearance the operators fielded an estimated 35,000 calls.

A Nedick's restaurant operated from the ground floor and a boxing club above when this photo was taken.  original source unknown

The Garden was also used for political rallies and conventions.  One, on February 20, 1939, caused an major incident.  The German-American Bund booked the space for a mass meeting.  Foes of the Nazis were outraged, and Mayor Fiorello La Guardian received a letter that threatened a bombing.  The following day the Daily News ran the headline "Police Break Up Anti-Nazi Crowd At Bund Meeting" and reported that 25,000 protestors "jammed every street leading to Madison Square Garden at 6:00."  An hour later a second protest erupted.  "Two hundred Socialists carrying anti-Nazi banners staged a ten-minute riot with 100 patrolmen outside Madison Square Garden," said the article, "and would have bested the police were it not for the timely arrival of mounted reinforcements."

Eighth Avenue is crowded outside the Garden hours before a Rangers-Red Wings hockey game. original source unknown

The Garden was the scene of a War Bond event on September 11, 1943.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported "Judy Garland is one of the stars signed up for a personal appearance in the Hollywood Bond Cavalcade...The show is expected to realize $86,000,000 in War Bond sales here and then move on to other cities."

Another celebrity event occurred on May 26, 1954 when Liberace held a concert here.  The Brooklyn Daily Eagle captioned a photo "Dimpled pianist Liberace, dressed in jazzy white silk tails, makes his entrance at Madison Square Garden where his concert attracted some 14,000 persons--75 percent of whom were women."

At the time the days of the Garden were numbered.  On April 2, 1964 a United Press International release reported that the Madison Square Garden Corporation "is the major sponsor of a new sports arena to be built over Pennsylvania Station in New York City.  The new arena will be 75 percent owned by Madison Square Garden Corporation, and 25 percent by the Pennsylvania Railroad."

Almost three years later to the day The New York Times reported "The new Madison Square Garden Center, being erected on the site of the Pennsylvania Station, is expected to be in full operation by year's end."  In 1968, following the opening of the new venue, demolition of the former Garden began.  The site remained vacant, used as a parking lot, until 1989 when Worldwide Plaza, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, was completed on the site.

photo by Jim Henderson

The Lost Original Madison Square Garden -- Madison Ave and 26th Street

Barnum erected canvas tenting over the former rail yards in inclement weather.  Note the crenelated tower at the far right side of the structure.

In 1871 the New York and Harlem Railroad abandoned its passenger depot and freight warehouse off Madison Square as it moved to a new facility uptown.  P. T. Barnum procured the property, encompassing the entire block from Madison to Fourth Avenue and from 26^th to 27^th Street, promising to transform it into the “Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome.”

Barnum’s plan was to create an open-air arena over the old train yards, encircled by wooden stadium-type seating.  Three years later, on February 12, 1874 The New York Times reported that the hippodrome was nearly completed.

The structure, 425 feet long and 200 feet wide was enclosed by 28-foot high brick walls.  “The ring for the miscellaneous performances, and the grand spectacle of the congress of monarchs, will be oval shaped, 270 feet long by 84 feet wide.”  Around the ring were pine seats protected by a wooden roof.  “A canopy of canvass will be raised over the arena to be used only in wet weather.  On fair days the canopy will be lowered, and there will be no other covering,” explained The Times.

 In true Barnum style, the level below the seats housed “a mammoth aquarium, aviary, museum, and menagerie.”

Barnum assured the public that his building would be as fireproof as possible.  Wood was used as little as possible, the wooden seats sat on sheet-iron to prevent them from igniting from the gas lighting fixtures on the level below, and the two grand entrances were wide enough to admit “two fire engines abreast.”

Nevertheless, there were “complaints made by property-holders against the erection of the building in their neighborhood,” according to The Times.  Mr. Coup, Barnum’s general manager, told the reporter “he was willing to do anything reasonable to satisfy everybody, but $35,000 had been already expended on the building alone, and $500,000 on the entire enterprise.  Under these circumstances he did not care to abandon the project of a hippodrome on Fourth avenue without a struggle.”

K. & H. T. Anthony & Co. published a stereo view of the open-air interior.  Projecting roofs protected the stands from sun and weather.

On the evening of April 24, 1874 Barnum invited “a large number of prominent citizens” to what he now termed the Roman Hippodrome.  The audience was initially treated to a pageant called the Congress of Nations.  The procession was led by England, represented by heralds followed by knights bearing the British flag, then the royal carriage “on which Queen Victoria sits enthroned surrounded by an escort of Life Guards, Grenadiers, Highlanders, and knights in full armor”

The lavish parade included actors representing the heads of states, including Kaiser Wilhelm, the Russian Czar, the Pasha of Egypt and “the Sovereign of the Celestial Empire” seated on the Dragon Car.  By today’s standards, Barnum may have gone a bit far.  The Times noted that following Napoleon I “came the Cross Keys of the Holy See, borne by a standard bearer, and followed by seven guards in the costumes designed by Michael Angelo.  The Pope enters on a chariot guarded by eight members of the College of Cardinals, followed by a deputation of Bishops.”

The newspaper reported “This magnificent display of pageantry preceded horse and chariot races, gymnastic performances, and elephant trot, and other exciting and interesting exhibitions.”

Three nights later was opening night.  All 12,000 seats were taken and the entrances were “rendered unapproachable” by the throngs who arrived later than 7:30.  They were treated to the same program; and thrilled to “an exciting scene of lassoing Texan cattle, in which a Comanche Chief and three Mexicans participated,” female chariot races, and a mock stag hunt with riders and a pack of hounds chasing the deer.

There were glitches.  Miss Mattie Lewis’s two-horse chariot was overturned, although she was uninjured; “in the hurdle race Miss Casteyrene was tossed violently from the bay mare she rode, and was unable to take part in any of the latter sports of the evening,” and some in the audience were put off by the cattle wrangling.  A reporter said “although it was an exhibition of genuine skill, and had its admirers, it seemed to be distasteful to a portion of the assemblage because of the rough usage of the poor steers at the hands of a ranchero.”

The dangerous acts were designed with what The Times called “the popular thirst for excitement.”   Within three months of the hippodrome’s opening, the newspaper complained that “many persons” had already died during performances.  An Barnum agent fired back on July 7, 1874, contradicting the newspaper’s assertion of “many” deaths.  “We only know that several people have been killed there…several may not be reckoned many.”

The New York Times got the last word in, writing “But, considering the claims of humanity even one death is one too many.”

Adults paid 30 cents admission, while children under 10 years old paid 15.  Seats could secured a week in advance.  The adult ticket price would be equal to about $6.50 today.

Barnum devised a way to keep the Roman Hippodrome open year-round by installing a heating system.  Following the February 9, 1875 performance area newspapers were enthusiastic.  The New York Herald wrote “The temperature was at summer heat,” and the Tribune said “Owing to the success of a new heating apparatus, the temperature throughout was maintained at the agreeable height of seventy degrees.

That summer a new pleasure garden appeared in New York, the Gilmore Garden, operated by Patrick Gilmore.  The New York Herald was blunt in its critique on August 15, 1875.  “It is temporary, tawdry in its adornments, while the music is not always of the highest standard.  For musical purposes Gilmore’s Garden is too large, and there is a general impression that people visit it as much for beer and for conversation as to listen to the band.”

The “temporary” and “tawdry” conditions of Patrick Gilmore’s operation would soon be rectified through an agreement with P. T. Barnum.  On December 7 a Barnum representative told a Tribune reporter “We are about getting ready to close up and go into Winter quarters.”  But, he added, “The Hippodrome will not be altogether vacant during the Winter.”

Gilmore’s Garden moved in, sharing the Hippodrome building with Barnum when his elaborate shows were in town.  An especially gala entertainment was held on July 3, 1876; the immense crowd prompting The Times to say “The number of visitors at Gilmore’s Garden last night was beyond computation.”  All seats were sold and “an uneasy, moving, perspiring crowd crammed and crushed.”

The main entrance to Gilmore's Concert Garden was located in the architecturally inconsistent crenelated section.  from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Crowds filled the streets to listen to the music that escaped through the open windows.  Leopold Damrosch conducted his full orchestra and chorus, Patrick Gilmore’s Band accompanied 500 vocalists and opera diva Madame Pappennheim sang several solos.  She closed the evening with a dramatic rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” with “full grand orchestra and chorus aiding, and working up a fitting sensation climax to the suggestive musical features of the evening,” wrote The Times.

Barnum was back in December with his circus and menagerie.  By now newspapers referred to the building only as “Gilmore’s Garden.”  The circus performances included the “largest and finest African lions ever exhibited,” a rhinoceros, hippopotamus, leopards, an ostrich and many other exotic animals.  Acts included Mrs. Whittaker’s comic mule, acrobats, bareback riding and trick ponies.

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore -- from the collection of the Library of Congress.

Victorians were rarely what today would be termed “politically correct” and that was evidenced by the January 20, 1877 “Fat men’s foot race” in Gilmore’s Garden.  Around 5,000 spectators gathered to watch five portly men compete.  The Times described James Huber saying “Huber was a corpulent man, best realizing the term fat of any of his companions.”  He “trotted along in the most comfortable manner, reminding one of nothing so much as the baby hippopotamus when he trudges out to be laughed at by admiring spectators.”

Even more shocking to modern readers was the announcement on December 3, 1877 that “The managers of the Great London Circus are making preparations to have a negro baby show at Gilmore’s Garden at an early date.”

Gilmore’s Garden served as the venue for a variety of events.  On February 21, 1878 it was the scene of the elaborate Arion Ball which included 15,000 dancers and was deemed by the New York Herald “the largest masquerade ever given in New York.” 

That same month the week-long “Great International Congress of Beauty and Culture” was held.  It was, in fact, a pioneering beauty contest.  The New York Herald reported that not only beauty would be contested, but “a decision has to be reached as to which is the best vocalist, the best roller skater, the best dancer, the best walkist and the best elocutionist.” 

As the event proceeded, local newspapers were less than kind.  On February 13 The Times reported “Mr. Hitchcock’s show of faded beauty and tenement-house culture was continued in Gilmore’s Garden yesterday…The attendance yesterday was almost as large as on the day before, and Mr. Hitchcock’s success has fully demonstrated that there are rowdies enough in the City to patronize a most degrading exhibition.”

That year Gilmore’s Garden would also host the New York Dog Show, concerts by Theodore Thomas’s famed orchestra, and botanical shows.  But Gilmore announced that when his lease (at a staggering $45,000 per year) with the Harlem Railroad Company expired, he would leave.

When Gilmore refused William K. Vanderbilt’s offer of a $40,000 renewal, the railroad titan told reporters “I hardly think we shall lease the building again, at all.”

And indeed 1879 saw Vanderbilt and the Harlem Railroad Company going into the entertainment business.  The railroad purchased “all the fixtures in the building” from Gilmore and appointed William M. Tilestone to manage the property.  Vanderbilt made another change as well:  he renamed the venue Madison Square Garden.

Among the first events in the Garden was an athletic competition on January 3, 1879.  The New York Herald reported on the “nearly thirty wiry fellows” who participated in a walk race, and on the “dogged and unyielding tug of war teams wet with perspiration even in zero weather.”

The weight of 10,000 persons who gathered to watch a walking race on March 12, 1879 was too much for the aging wooden seats.  The New York Herald reported “The breaking down of the crazy gallery…under its weight of spectators last night, came near being an awful catastrophe…That hundreds of lives were not sacrificed in the rush toward the doors is nothing less than miraculous.  A wretched structure of nailed boards was put up to carry a moving weight ten times more than it could bear, with the inevitable result.”

The audience that night included at least three eminent patrons.  The New York Times reported “Part of the south end of the gallery that gave way rested upon the roof of one of the rustic pavilions, and this was entirely demolished.  This was Mr. William H. Vanderbilt’s private box, and on Tuesday evening, at the hour of the accident, it was occupied by Mr. Vanderbilt, Sir Edward Thornton, several other gentlemen, and several ladies.”  Although Vanderbilt and his party were unhurt, nine persons were seriously injured.

It may have been the horrific collapse and the ensuing bad press that prompted Vanderbilt to upgrade the old building.  On December 13, 1879 The Times reported work had begun “of repairing and improving the structure to suit the character of the building as a vast place of amusement.”  The exterior walls were raised, “the hideous figures, called by courtesy ‘sphynxes,’ which flank the main entrance, are to be removed, and an ornamental iron portico, 40 feet wide, will shelter the main entrance, extending to the curbstone.”

Interior improvements included “a continuous suite of rooms, comprising dressing-rooms, parlors and toilet-rooms” on the lobby level.  There would be new staircases, hot-air furnaces and frescoed walls.

But the improvements were short-lived.  On April 21, 1880 roof timbers were apparently overheated by gas lighting.  A truss gave way, causing the roof to collapse and a wall to give way.  Among the four fatalities was manager William M. Tileston.  Twenty-two others were hospitalized.

The Times called it “a shameful and terrible accident” and reported that on the collapse of the Madison Avenue wall which, “including the tower at the north-western corner, fell into the street, carrying away the Art Gallery, the dancing-room, and part of the restaurant.”

Seconds before the Art Gallery had been the scene of a fashionable dance.  “A pianoforte was playing a lively waltz, and among the dancers were persons well known in New-York society.”  When unharmed gentlemen and ladies in evening clothes collected themselves, they “began to explore the ruins up stairs a few seconds after the accident, in the stifling dust.”  Working with firefighters and police, they worked among the jagged timbers and bricks in search of the injured.

Two months later Vanderbilt joined with P. T. Barnum and three other moguls to form the Barnum Museum Company.  It purchased the Madison Square Garden property from the Harlem Railroad for $800,000 and announced plans “to build thereon a mammoth edifice, to be devoted to purposes of amusement.”  But by December the plans were scrapped.  On November 30, 1880 The Times reported “The facts are that the grand scheme has been abandoned.”

Instead, the building was patched up at a cost of $12,000.  The group announced “The work is supervised by Mr. Vanderbilt’s own architects.”  In April 1882 it reopened with Barnum’s Hippodrome show.  And among the greatest attraction was the world-famous Jumbo the elephant.

The circus and menagerie shows continued for seven years.  On May 13, 1889 The Evening World announced “Eight beauteous maidens, fair to see.  This is the vision which presented itself to the eye of the beholder at Madison Square Garden this week, each mounted on a two-wheeled horse.”  The two-wheeled horses, of course, were bicycles.

The end of the line for the old entertainment venue was near at the time.  On August 7, 1889 demolition began on what Harper’s Weekly called Vanderbilt’s “patched-up, grumy, drafty combustible, old shell.”  The Company had commissioned architects McKim, Mead & White to design a “mammoth place of amusement.”

The masterful new Madison Square Garden opened on June 7, 1890.  It survived until 1925 when it was demolished by the New York Life Insurance Company.

Stanford White's Lost 1890 Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden around 1910 -- postcard from author's collection

In 1874, as the New York entertainment district cropped up along 23rd Street in the post-Civil War years, P. T. Barnum converted a railroad freight warehouse on Madison Square and 26th Street for larger-than-life open air entertainments. In true Barnum fashion, he called the venue the “Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome.” Not exactly a name that rolled easily off the tongue.

William K. Vanderbilt took over the space in 1879 and rechristened it Madison Square Garden. Vanderbilt used the building primarily for sporting events; but it was “dirty, rickety, even dangerous,” according to The New York Times and by 1888 the idea of a more modern, enclosed arena took shape.

On March 22, 1889 the plans for the new building were announced. McKim, Mead & White would design the “imposing quadrangular structure of the order of architecture known as Italian Renaissance, of yellow pressed brick and white terra-cotta masonry, iron, and glass,” said The New York Times.

The newspaper foretold of an arcade extending over the sidewalk around the building, an amphitheater 310 by 195 feet with a track one-tenth of a mile and an arena 122 by 226 feet. “The seating capacity will be 5,060, or double the capacity of the present garden,” said the article, and the amphitheater “will hold 12,000 people without discomfort or crowding.”

In addition, the vast venue would house a grand concert hall seating 3046 people, a café and a restaurant. On the roof would be a Summer garden for evening concerts.

The architects explained “The plan of this hall has been very carefully studied upon the actual construction of Wagner’s theatre at Bayreuth, and is in accord with the most advanced theories of acoustics.”

By August the old structure was being torn down as New Yorkers were promised “a mammoth place of amusement.” The floor of the amphitheater could be floored over for conventions, accommodating 12,000 persons. Below the sidewalk, a hall for stabling horses during horse shows and circuses was planned.  Dining rooms, rooms for supper parties, galleries and concert halls would be reached by stairways and elevators

A 300-foot tower inspired by the Giralda of Seville would rise at the corner of 26th Street, topped by a controversial 18-foot gilded statue of a nude Diana by Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  It would have not only an observation tower, but a private apartment for Stanford White that would be the source of his undoing.

On June 7, 1890 the amphitheater–the first section of the building completed–was opened to “a few privileged spectators.” Four thousand electric lights bedazzled the invited guests at what was called the largest hall of public entertainment in the world. Stretching from 26th Street to 27th Street and two-thirds of the block from Madison to 4th Avenue, The New York Times reported, “It is provided with seats for about 9,000 persons, and will easily hold 14,000.” A sliding skylight covering about half of the roof opened mechanically to improve the ventilation.

The interior was lush. Polished granite pillars supported the entrance, the staircases throughout were marble and stone and the floors were mosaics. The building was, according to The New York Times, “one of the great institutions of the town, to be mentioned along with Central Park, the bridge to Brooklyn, and the new aqueduct.”

The rarely-seen 4th Avenue facade -- postcard from author's collection

The Garden was the site of great entertainments as well as annual shows: the dog show, the cat show, the “mammoth flower show,” the sportsmen’s exposition and the bicycle show. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World was here in 1900, entertaining thousands with bucking broncos, Annie Oakley and marksman Johnny Baker.

Upstairs, in his private apartments, Stanford White was hosting entertainment of his own. The married architect was a notorious playboy and womanizer who frequently dated showgirls and models.

In 1900 the 47-year old architect had met 16-year old showgirl Evelyn Nesbitt who became the wife of Pennsylvania millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw.  As with so many girls, she and White entered into a sexual relationship. When Thaw found out about the affair, he simmered with jealous rage.

On the evening of June 25, 1906 Stanford White sat in evening clothes in the Roof Garden to enjoy the premiere of the musical Mam’zelle Champagne. While the chorus sang “I Could Love a Million Girls,” Harry Thaw walked to White’s table and fired a gun three times into White’s temple. According to one witness Thaw uttered, “You’ll never go out with that woman again.”

Stanford White died on the floor of what some considered his masterpiece.

On June 10, 1911 the Garden was sold for $3.5 million, just about the original cost of construction, to the F. & D. Company.  The firm immediately announced plans to demolish the building.  Madison Square Garden, despite its popularity, was a financial failure from its opening. In its place, the public was told, would rise a 25-story office building, the largest commercial structure in the world.

Financial problems saved the grand building and in December 1916 the New York Life Insurance Company purchased it for $2 million when F. & D. Company defaulted on interest on the mortgages.

A year later Helen Henderson, in her A Loiterer in New York, lamented the fate of the Garden.  "The building has an unforgivable fault--it never 'paid.'  And for that 'they' say it has got to come down."

Although in 1920 the insurance company gave a 10-year lease to the sports promoter G. L. “Tex” Rickard, four years later it revealed plans to demolish the building to be replaced by its 28-story headquarters.

The Roof Garden during demolition, 1925 -- photo NYPL Collection

In 1925, in one of New York City’s greatest acts of architectural vandalism--ranking with the destruction of Pennsylvania Station--Stanford White’s astonishing Madison Square Garden was torn to the ground.