| Everyone is mourning the close of Yankee Stadium. Having grown up in The Bronx I share my friends sentiments. I remind them that another great building, Madison Square Garden has been in four different buildings and the memories don't diminish, they continue. |
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Madison Sq. Garden #1 (From Mike Naughton)
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John Herriott has a great story about the Red Show and Blue Show elephant herds passing each other in that tunnel.
The Bronx, the childhood home of award winning circus photographer and friend Paul Guthiel. Having snapped everything in The Bronx he moved to New Jersey where he had more scenery to photograph.
The Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx has many show business personalities as their permanent residents;
James A. Bailey
John Murray Anderson
Oscar Hammerstein
Vern and Irene Castledance team
George M. Cohan and parents and sister
Irving Berlin
Vivian Beaumont (patroness, theatre at Lincoln Center named in her honor)
Norah Bayes, singer-cowriter Shine on Harvest Moon
Duke Ellington
Charlie Dale and Joe
Smith
of Smith and Dale, the Sunshine Boys movie was based on them.
Marx--composer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Victor Herbert, composer, Ah Sweet Mystery of Live.
Antoinette Perry--the Tony Awards are named after her.
The "real estate" that the present Garden took up was the
magnificent Pennsylvania Railroad
Station, leveled before the era of
Landmarking!!
A Garden #5 was on the drawing boards to be built in the area now occupied by the Post Office across 8th Ave. from the present Garden, but now they've decided to renovate the current Garden to the tune of 500M - to be completed in time for the 2011-2012 season.
http://msg.com/renovation/
I see tickets are on sale for "Zing Zang Zoom"... the new Red show next Mar- Apr 13, 2009.
klsdad
Buckles,
Rivaling the herds passing in the tunnel, was the massive Ringling show tearing down, rubber rolled up and parquet flooring laid and the Bulls and the Knicks warming up 4 hours after the show finished. Watching the process for Sonny Werblings suite, it was a monumental undertaking done at least a half dozen times during the run.
Wade Burck
Buckles: This photo actually shows the back side of the old Garden on Park Ave.
This Garden faced Madison Ave between 26th and 27th Streets; there is a big insurance building there today- I think New York Life.
Winston Churchill's mother was said to have been born on the south east corner of 26th and Madison, right across the side street from the Garden.
Mike: I had the great pleasure of seeing Smith and Dale at the old Palace in 1954. There were a lot of old retired vaudevillians sitting down front and this one couple sitting right in front of us would whisper all the punch lines to each other. This extra free show made the show on stage all the funnier.
The photo is of the Stanford White-designed Garden, where he met his demise in the roof top theater at the end of Harry K. Thaw's pistol. Despite being considered externally beautiful, it was regarded as a drafty old place, conducive to the likes of TB, especially after they hauled in moisture-laden soil for the circus. Those were the days before rubber mats and atmosphere controls. Yet, it was Al Ringling's vision to blow the opening whistle at a Ringling Bros. opener in this very structure that caused the brothers to flip flop their two circuses in 1909, with the resultant financial flop of both. Thereafter, Ringling continued to open in Chicago's Coliseum and B&B returned to the Garden, remaining so until the 1919 combine. But, Al got to blow his whistle to open a Ringling show in the Garden. By the way, it was a group that included John Ringling who replaced the White structure.
The version of the Garden pictured here is the one designed by famed architect Stanford White and opened in 1890. It replaced a previous “Garden” building that had stood on the site from 1879 until torn down for White’s version.
This site had once been the passenger depot for the New York and Harlem Railroad (later a part of the New York Central).
Because of public distaste for the dirt, cinders and sound of steam locomotives, the City of New York passed an ordinance forbidding the operation of steam locomotive south of 42nd St. So, to get down to the terminal at 26th and 27th streets (near Madison Square), each passenger car was unhooked and pulled by teams of horses from 42nd down Park (4th) Ave to the depot. The same occurred in the reverse direction and at 42 St. the cars were reassembled into a train to be pulled north by a steam locomotive.
The New York and Harlem abandoned the depot at Madison Square in 1871 moving to a new Grand Central Depot built at 42nd St. The old depot on 27th was then demolished leaving the site to become a showgrounds and later the first of the many “Gardens.”
Incidentally it was Stanford White who also designed the famed Pennsylvania Station (site of Garden no. 4 on 7th Ave.) White was shot to death in 1906 by Harry K. Thaw during a party in the roof restaurant of the Garden he had designed and which is shown in this picture. Thaw’s wife, actress and model Evelyn Nesbitt, had allegedly been seduced by White years earlier. White had a reputation as a roué. There was a sensational trial, made more so by William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers. The fair lady seduced by White became know as “Girl in the Red Velvet Swing.”
And just think, it all happened in the Garden.
According to Gene Plowden's book "Those Amazing Ringlings and Their Circus", John Ringling was actually supposed to be at the rooftop party on June 25, 1906 when Stanford White was murdered. He arrived late - just after White was killed. A fictionalized version of the murder at Madison Square Garden is described in the book and movie "Ragtime".
Very intiresting material here. Next year Ringling will play 11 days in the city. I think the longest Feld's circus was there was at least 11 weeks, but that was before the Meadowlands and the buiding in Long Island. Still 11 days from 11 weeks is sad.
Plowden's account is taken from Thomas's biography of JR. If one looks into the details of the matter, there doesn't appear to be any basis for the claimed meeting. Use Plowden, and Thomas, with caution.
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