Madison Square Garden Receives Eviction Notice

By Amy Fernandez

As The Canine Chronicle first reported in May, The Garden’s days are numbered. Many dismissed this looming possibility as rumor because of MSG’s recently completed three year, $1 billion makeover. However, efforts to force the arena out of its present location have been brewing long before that.

To recap:

Penn Station ranks as the country’s largest transportation hub. At the center of the Northeast Corridor, it services New Jersey Transit, Long Island Railroad, Amtrak trains, and NYC subway lines. For years, it’s been unable to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of daily commuters now using it. However, redesigning the station or upgrading for obvious improvements like bullet train service between D.C. and Boston are non-issues as long as MSG remains perched on top of it.

In the late ‘80s, the gorgeously renovated Grand Central Terminal became a drastic contrast to its dingy Westside counterpart nicknamed the dungeon. By the early ‘90s, complaining from city officials and independent groups fueled a grassroots movement to renovate Penn Station, which steadily gained momentum as gentrification engulfed surrounding neighborhoods. Throughout these decades, MSG’s location remained a major talking point.

Early negotiations produced a tentative agreement to move MSG across Eighth Avenue into the old Farley Post Office. A combination of bureaucratic inertia and economic downturn stalled that plan in 2008. As a result, MSG’s owners proceeded to upgrade the 45-year-old arena. That project was completed last January, just as its 50-year land-use permit expired. James L. Dolan, who controls the Garden, the Knicks and the Rangers, expected MSG’s operating permit to be renewed “in perpetuity”. Local officials thought otherwise.

Since then, it has been a tooth-and-nail battle. On February 15, 2013, Manhattan Community Board 5 voted unanimously against MSG’s request for a permanent operating permit, making it clear that the iconic arena should not consider itself a permanent fixture at its current location. Subsequently, negotiations have continued about the terms of the temporary operating permit.

The latest round featured intensive lobbying from the Madison Square Garden Company, as well as celebrities like Spike Lee and Walt Frazier. The end result was the New York City Council’s July 24 vote of 47 to 1, approving a ten-year temporary operating permit while its management seeks to relocate. This decision actually chopped five years off the deal originally proposed by the Bloomberg administration.

Council Speaker and mayoral frontrunner Christine C. Quinn called for the creation of a special commission to find a new Manhattan home for the arena and begin tentative Penn Station renovation plans. That will undoubtedly ensure plenty of bureaucratic foot dragging, but it’s a done deal. MSG is being evicted.

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Posted by admin on Jul 30 2013. Filed under Breaking News, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.