Madison Square and Madison Square Park

On May 10, 1847, the 6.2-acre (2.5 ha)[9] Madison Square Park, named after President James Madison,[5] opened to the public.[4] Within a few years, the tide of residential development, which was relentlessly moving uptown, had reached the Madison Square area. Initially, the houses around the park were narrow, crowded and dark brownstone rowhouses with small rooms easily subject to becoming cluttered. Today, the only remnant of these brownstones is a single building at 14 East 23rd Street.[2]

Despite this beginning, through the 1870s, the neighborhood became an aristocratic one of brownstone row houses and mansions where the elite of the city lived; Theodore Roosevelt, Edith Wharton and Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie Jerome, were all born here.[4][5]

Madison Cottage was torn down in 1852 to make way for Franconi's Hippodrome, which lasted only for two years. It was an arena which seated 10,000 customers, and presented chariot races on its 40-foot (12 m) wide track, as well as exotic animals such as elephants and camels. A money-loser, it would be razed so that the Fifth Avenue Hotel could be built on the site.[2]

In 1853, plans had been made to build the Crystal Palace there, but strong public opposition and protests caused the palace to be relocated by the Board of Aldermen to the site of present-day Bryant Park.[10]

During the 1863 New York City draft riots, 10,000 Federal troops brought in to control the rioters encamped in Madison Square and Washington Square, as well as Stuyvesant Square.[7] Madison Square was also the site in November 1864 of a political rally, complete with torchlight parade and fireworks, in support of the presidential candidacy of Democrat General George B. McClellan, who was running against his old boss, Abraham Lincoln. It was larger than the Republican parade the night before, which had marched from Madison Square to Union Square to rally there.[7]

The Fifth Avenue Hotel, a luxury hotel built by developer Amos Eno, and initially known as "Eno's Folly" because it was so far away from the hotel district, stood on the west side of Madison Square from 1859 to 1908.[11] It was the first hotel in the nation with elevators, which were steam powered and known as the "vertical railroad", which had the effect of making the upper floors more desirable as they no longer had to be reached by climbing stairs.[12] It had fireplaces in every bedroom, private bathrooms, and public rooms which saw many elegant events. Notable visitors to the hotel included Mark Twain, Swedish singer Jenny Lind, railroad tycoon Jay Gould, financier "Big Jim" Fisk, the Prince of Wales and U.S. Presidents James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley. Theodore Roosevelt's campaign headquarters for his unsuccessful campaign for mayor in 1886, and his likewise failed campaign for governor in 1898 were located in the hotel.[2] The hotel, which was noted for its "Amen Corner" where Republican political boss Thomas Collier Platt held court in the 1890s,[2][13][14] was closed and demolished in 1908.[15] It is reported that patrons of the hotel's bar spent $7.000 on drinks on its last day of operation.[2] A plaque on the Toy Center, the building currently on the site, commemorates the hotel.[5]

With the success of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, which could house 800 guests, other grand hotels such as the Hoffman House, the Brunswick and the Victoria, opened in the surrounding area, as did entertainment venues such as the Madison Square Theatre and Chickering Hall.[6] Upscale restaurants such a Delmonico's and high-end retail shops opened up along Fifth Avenue and Broadway, in addition, nearby exclusive private clubs such as the Union, Athenaeum and Lotos clubs, began to open. But also, "concert-saloons", like "The Luovre", full of waitresses in provocative short skirts who served drinks and provided music-hall entertainment for the customers, began to appear as well; the waitresses were often willing to take the male customers upstairs to private rooms, or to one of the many nearby brothels which had also started to pop up.[2]

With the center of the expanding city moving north by the turn of the century, and the neighborhood becoming commercialized, elite residents moved farther uptown, away from Madison Square, enabling more restaurants, theatres and clubs to open up in the neighborhood, creating an entertainment district, albeit an upscale one where society balls and banquets were held in restaurants such as Delmonico's. Nearby, huge dry-goods emporia such as Siegel-Cooper in the Ladies' Mile district brought daytime crowds of shoppers.[16] No longer primarily residential, Madison Square was still a thriving area.

At the western side of Madison Square Park, on an island bordered by Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 25th Street, stands an obelisk, designed by James Goodwin Batterson[17] which was erected in 1857 over the tomb of General William Jenkins Worth, who served in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican War,[5] and for whom Fort Worth, Texas, was named, as well as Worth Street in lower Manhattan.[18] The city's Parks Department designated the area immediately around the monument as a parklet called General Worth Square.[19]

The new design brought in the sculptures that now reside in the park. One notable sculpture is the seated bronze portrait of Secretary of State William H. Seward, by Randolph Rogers (1876), which sits at the southwest entrance to the park. Seward, who is best remembered for purchasing Alaska ("Seward's Folly") from Russia, was the first New Yorker to have a monument erected in his honor.[20]

Other statues in the park depict Roscoe Conkling, who served in Congress in both the House and the Senate, and who collapsed at that spot in the park while walking home from his office during the Blizzard of 1888 and died five weeks later, after refusing to pay a cab $50 for the ride;[21][22] Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st President of the United States; and David Farragut, who is supposed to have said "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" in the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War. The Farragut Memorial (1881), which was first erected at Fifth Avenue and 26th Street and moved to the Square's northern end in 1935,[23] was designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (sculpture) and architect Stanford White (base).[24]

Along the south edge of the park of is the Eternal Light Flagstaff, dedicated on Armistice Day 1923 and restored in 2002, which commemorates the return of American soldiers and sailors from World War I.[25]

Another park highlight is the granite Southern Fountain, a modern reproduction of the original fountain, which was first located on the site of the Old Post Office. It was completed in 1843, before being rededicated in the park in 1867.[26] The modern replacement was installed in 1990, and renovated in 2015.[27][28]

Madison Square continued to be a focus of public activities for the city. In the 1870s, developer Amos Eno's Cumberland apartment building, which stood on 22nd Street where the Flatiron Building would eventually be built, had four-stories of its back wall facing Madison Square, so Eno rented it out to advertisers, including the New York Times, who installed a sign made up of electric lights. Eno later put a canvas screen on the wall, and projected images on it from a magic lantern on top of one of his smaller buildings on the lot, presenting both advertisements and interesting pictures in alternation. Both the Times and the New York Tribune began using the screen for news bulletins, and on election nights crowds of tens of thousands of people would gather in Madison Square, waiting for the latest results.[29]

In 1876, a large celebration was held in Madison Square Park to honor the centennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Then, from 1876 to 1882, the torch and arm of the Statue of Liberty were exhibited in the park in an effort to raise funds for building the pedestal of the statue.[30]

Madison Square was the site of some of the first electric street lighting in the city. In 1879, the city authorized the Brush Electric Light Company to build a generating station at 25th Street, powered by steam, that provided electricity for a series of arc lights which were installed on Broadway between Union Square (at 14th Street) and Madison Square. The lights were illuminated on December 20, 1880. A year later, 160-foot (49 m) "sun towers" with clusters of arc lights were erected in Union and Madison Squares.[7]

The area around Madison Square continued to be commercially fashionable, if not residentially. In 1883, art dealer Thomas Kirby and two others established a salon "for the Encouragement and Promotion of American art" on the south side of the Square. Their American Art Association auction rooms, the first auction house in the US, quickly became the place to go in New York to buy and sell jewelry, antiquities, fine art and rare books.[31]

The park was the site of an unusual public protest in 1901. Oscar Spate, a displaced Londoner, convinced the Parks Commissioner, George Clausen, to allow him to pay the city $500 a year to put 200 cushioned rocking chairs in Madison Square Park, Union Square, and Central Park and charge the public 5 cents for their use. Free benches were moved away from shaded areas, and Spate's chairs replaced them. When a heat wave hit the city in July, people in Madison Park refused to pay the nickel that was now required to sit in the shade. The police became involved, and newspapers like The Sun and William Randolph Hearst's Evening Journal took up the cause. People began going to the park with the intent of sitting and refusing to pay, and a riot occurred involving a thousand men and boys, who chased the chairs' attendant out of the park and overturned and broke up chairs and benches.[36][37] The police were called, but the disturbance nevertheless continued for several days. On July 11, Clausen annulled the city's 5-year contract with Spate (whose real name was Reginald Seymour), prompting a celebration with bands and fireworks in Madison Square Park attended by 10,000 people. Spate went to court and got a preliminary injunction against Clausen's breaking of the contract, but the judge refused to allow him to force the public to pay. The Evening Journal followed by asking for an injunction against pay chairs, and when this was granted Spate gave up. He sold the chairs to Wanamaker's, where they were advertised as "Historic Chairs".[37]

Two months later, in September, the Seventy-first Regiment Band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in the park as recognition of the death by assassination of President William McKinley. The hymn had been McKinley's favorite.[38]

On the election night of November 4, 1902, a fireworks disaster led to the deaths of 15 people (Inclulding Patrolman Dennis Shea of the NYPD) and the wounding of 70, as a display meant to celebrate the election of William Randolph Hearst to Congress misfired.[39]

Christmas tree in Madison Square Park, c.1912

In 1908, the New York Herald installed a giant searchlight among the girders of the Metropolitan Life Tower to signal election results. A northward beam signaled a win for the Republican candidate, and a southward beam for the Democrat. The beam went north, signaling the victory of Republican William Howard Taft.

America's first community Christmas tree was illuminated in Madison Square Park on December 24, 1912, an event which is commemorated by the illuminated Star of Hope on a tall pole, installed in 1916 at the southern end of the park.[40] Today the Madison Square Park Conservancy continues to present an annual tree-lighting ceremony sponsored by local businesses.

Author Willa Cather described Madison Square around 1915 in her novel My Mortal Enemy (1926):

Madison Square was then at the parting of the ways; had a double personality, half commercial, half social, with shops to the south and residences to the north. It seemed to me so neat, after the raggedness of our Western cities; so protected by good manners and courtesy—like an open-air drawing-room. I could well imagine a winter dancing party being given there, or a reception for some distinguished European visitor.[41]

In the early part of the 20th century, the neighborhood around Madison Square Garden became known for the number of clothing manufacturers who had set up shop there, as well as industrial concerns such as the Lionel Train Company, which had its headquarters there, where it displayed its first model train layout. Lionel's competitor, the A. C. Gilbert Company, set up its New York "Hall of Science" in the neighborhood as well, in 1941, on 25th Street across from Worth Square, in a building that still stands, addressed as 202 Fifth Avenue; Gilbert also displayed its train layouts. Lionel eventually bought up Gilbert in 1967.[2]

The toy industry gravitated to the area during World War I, with a number of toy manufacturers having locations at 200 Fifth Avenue – where the Fifth Avenue Hotel once stood – and which eventually became the International Toy Center. In 1967, the center expanded up Broadway to an additional building at 1107 Broadway, and the two were connected by a pedestrian bridge. The Toy Center was for many years the site of the annual New York Toy Fair until 2005, when the center closed. Some of the major manufacturers, such as Mattel and Hasbro, expanded out of the Toy Center building into their own headquarters nearby, Mattel on West 23rd Street and Hasbro on Sixth Avenue.[2]

In 1936, to commemorate the centennial of the opening of Madison Avenue, the Fifth Avenue Association donated an oak from Montpelier, the Virginia estate of former president James Madison. It is located toward the center of the eastern perimeter of the park.

The New York City Department of Traffic announced a plan in 1964 to build a parking garage underneath the park, much like the Boston Common, Union Square in San Francisco and MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The plan was successfully blocked by preservationists, who cited concerns about the damage that the excavation would cause to the park, particularly the roots of its many trees.[42][43]

On October 17, 1966, a fire at 7 East 23rd Street resulted in one of the deadliest building collapses in the history of the New York City Fire Department, when 12 FDNY staff—two chiefs, two lieutenants, and eight firefighters—were killed. This was the department's greatest loss of life before the September 11 terrorist attacks.[44] A plaque honoring the victims can be seen on Madison Green, the apartment building currently occupying the site.[45]

By the middle of the 20th century, some of the buildings in the neighborhood were half-empty,[2] and it was widely recognized that the park needed to be restored and renovated.[46] Efforts began in 1979 with a privately funded program to clean up and maintain the park, the first time that non-public funding was used in New York City for long-term work in the city's parks.[46] Then, in November 1986, ground was broken on what was to become the full-scale restoration of the park. Phase one of the project, involving the north end of the park and Worth Square, was completed in 1988, and included the addition of a playground in the northeast corner. Phase two was to have begun in November 1987, but never got started, leaving the south end of the park unrestored for 11 years.[46]

In 1997, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation asked the City Parks Foundation to organize an effort to raise funds to complete the revitalization. Their "Campaign for the New Madison Square Park" led to the renovation and restoration of the park, the addition of a dog run and the return of 1,200 square feet (110 m²) to the southeast corner.[46] An outgrowth of the fund-raising campaign was the formation of Madison Square Park Conservancy,[47] a public-private partnership whose mission is to keep it "a bright, beautiful and active public park."[48]

The Shake Shack stand, added in 2004. The chain began in 2001 as a hot dog cart at the Madison Square Park.

One amenity, added to the park in July 2004, is the Shake Shack, a popular permanent stand that serves hamburgers, hot dogs, shakes and other similar food, as well as wine. Its distinctive building, which was designed by Sculpture in the Environment, an architectural and environmental design firm based in Lower Manhattan, sits near the southeast entrance to the park.[49] In 2010, park designer and horticulturalist Lynden Miller was hired to reconfigure the planting beds.[50]

The 1902 Flatiron Building rises above the park

On the south end of Madison Square, southwest of the park, is the Flatiron Building, one of the oldest of the original New York skyscrapers, and just to east at 1 Madison Avenue is the Met Life Tower, built in 1909 and the tallest building in the world until 1913, when the Woolworth Building was completed.[55] As of 2020, the Met Life Tower contains a luxury hotel within its clock tower,[56] while the building's office space is being renovated.[57] The 700-foot (210 m) marble clock tower of this building dominates the park. The Met Life Tower absorbed the site of the architecturally distinguished 1854 building of the former Madison Square Presbyterian Church, designed by architect Richard Upjohn on the southeast corner of 24th Street, while the Metropolitan Life North Building replaced the 1906 replacement church on the northeast corner of 24th Street and Madison, designed by Stanford White and demolished in 1919.[58]

Nearby, on Madison Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets, on the site of the old Madison Square Garden, is the 40-floor, 615-foot (187 m) high New York Life Building, built in 1928 and designed by Cass Gilbert, with a square tower topped by a striking gilded pyramid.[59] Also of note is the statuary adorning the Appellate Division Courthouse of the New York State Supreme Court on Madison Avenue at 25th Street.[60]

Madison Square Park Tower and One Madison (center right) are recent additions to the otherwise largely 20th century skyline

To the west of the Flatiron Building, at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, is Henry J. Hardenbergh's Western Union Telegraph Building, one of the first commercial buildings in the area. It was completed in 1884, the same year his Dakota Apartment Building was finished.[61]

One Madison, a 50-story residential condominium tower which opened in 2013, is located at 22 East 23rd Street, at the foot of Madison Avenue across from the park.[62][63] Down the block to the west, on the southeast corner of Broadway and 23rd Street, with the address of 5 East 22nd Street, is the Madison Green condominium apartment tower. While not architecturally notable, the building is significant as one of the first signs that the area was rebounding. The 31-story building was first announced in the mid-1970s, but was not constructed until 1982.[64][65] Near the other end of the 22nd Street block between Broadway and Park Avenue South is the Madison Square Park Tower at 45 East 22nd Street, a 64-story residential skyscraper which topped-out in 2017 and is expected to open in 2018.

Madison Square can be reached on the New York City Subway via local service on the BMT Broadway Line (N, ​R, and ​W trains) at the 23rd Street station.[66][67] In addition, local stops on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (6 and <6>​ trains) and IND Sixth Avenue Line (F, <F>, and ​M trains) are one block away at Park Avenue South and Sixth Avenue, respectively.[67][68]