The Wall Breakers

The Original Penn Station was quite possibly the most beautiful train station in history. See rare images of it below in all it's glory prior to it being torn down in favor of the fourth Madison Square Garden.

Do most people realize that the current Madison Square Garden is actually the 4th building to have that name? The 4th incarnation of the Garden opened on February 11, 1968 as is now the oldest sports arena in the NHL and the 2nd oldest in the NBA. It's the previous version we'd like to focus on.

The 3rd version of the Garden opened it's doors in 1925 and was located on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets in Manhattan, on the site of the city's trolley-car barns. 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, concerts, and other events. By the late 1950s a need for a new arena was growing and developers used a new Madison Square Garden as an excuse to tear down Penn Station (just my opinion). 

When the third Madison Square Garden was torn down there was a proposal to build the world's tallest building on the site, prompting a major battle in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood where it was located. Ultimately, the debate resulted in strict height restrictions in the area. The space remained a parking lot until 1989(!) when Worldwide Plaza, designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, opened on the site of the old Garden. It's a travesty that such an important building was so easily torn down and the site in which it stood remained vacant for over 20 years thanks to poor city planning, corruption, and political strife. The arena itself was a majestic, box-shaped masterpiece. I'd love to have been able to have seen it and stepped on its floor. The last show to be housed in the 3rd Garden was the Westminster Dog Show in 1968. In the 2nd photo you can see it's advertisement as well as another advertising the Knicks at the new Garden. Take a look at some rare, beautiful images of MSG III below. 

There is floral art and then there is floral art.

When I first laid eyes on Jo Beer’s vibrant canvases, I knew I’d found the latter, the kind that makes you stand up, stand closer, and take notice. 

By the 1980s, some would argue that New York city was fast becoming a cesspool of crack cocaine, crime, and creepy street corners. That wasn't all true, although in the 1980s New York city really was in desperate need of the changes that future Mayor Rudolph Giuliani brought with him in 1993. Hookers in Times Square and hypodermic needles in the sand in Coney Island were commonplace. It was the result of a three-decade period of urban decay, but New York City was still New York City. Only the gods and the city that never sleeps are immortal. The death of New York was never even close to being immanent. Take a look at these rare images of normal life in New York in the 1980s below.