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NEW YORK CITY: Madison Square Garden Told To Find New Location In 10 Years

Yesterday the New York City Council voted 47-1 to renew the lease for Madison Square Garden for a mere ten years, rather than an "in perpetuity" lease as the venue had wanted.

Ten years should be enough time, officials said, for the Garden to find a new location and for the city to devise plans for an expanded Pennsylvania Station, which currently sits below the Garden, and the redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood. “This is the first step in finding a new home for Madison Square Garden and building a new Penn Station that is as great as New York and suitable for the 21st century,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker. “This is an opportunity to reimagine and redevelop Penn Station as a world-class transportation destination.”

Ms. Quinn renewed her call for the creation of a commission to devise the plans. Civic leaders and some developers have long sought to rebuild Penn Station, a cramped and crowded maze for the more than 500,000 people a day who traverse it. But doing so would be an enormously complicated, multibillion-dollar undertaking that has foiled officials in the past. And anything can happen in the next 10 years, including several elections for mayor and governor.

Yesterday MSG also got the news that Brooklyn's brand new Barclays Center is already the nation's top-grossing concert venue.

The numbers were a remarkable showing for the rust-colored arena on Atlantic Avenue, which opened in late September last year with a string of concerts by Jay Z. Overall, Barclays ranked No. 2 worldwide in ticket sales with $46.9 million, second to the O2 Arena in London, with $119 million, Billboard reported. Madison Square Garden was fourth with $39 million. Pollstar, a trade magazine for the live music industry, said Barclays was third worldwide in number of tickets sold, with 657,000, well ahead of Madison Square Garden, which sold 194,000.

Whatever happened to the grand plan to turn the Main Post Office into a new Penn Station? A website in support of that project hasn't been updated in over a year.

New Yorkers Rally Against Hate Crimes Outside Madison Square Garden

Hundreds of LGBT New Yorkers gathered outside Madison Square Garden last night in protest of the ongoing spree of violent anti-gay hate crimes, one of which occurred outside the famed sports venue. The protest was organized by Queer Rising and the LGBT Anti-Violence Project. Visit the Facebook page of Gay Marriage USA for many more photos and some of the great signs from the protest. In the top photo above is ACT UP and Occupy activist Brandon Cuicchi, whom I met last year when he was my Bear Week housemate in Provincetown. With the microphone in the second photo is Queer Rising organizer Eugene Lovendusky. In the bottom photo is Miss Stonewall 2013, Frostie Flakes.  (Via JMG reader Murray)

Bob Mould Rocks Madison Square Garden

At a sold out show at Madison Square Garden, the Foo Fighters invited openly gay rock legend Bob Mould to join them for a jam session which included a cover version of Tom Petty's classic, Breakdown. The audience gave Mould a rousing welcome.

Dawk Sawkasm In Thuh Claahsroom

Last night my pal Jerry treated me to Roger Waters' restaging of Pink Floyd's The Wall at Madison Square Garden, where 20,000 New Yorkers sang along to the title track in mock British accents. (Same thing when I saw Depeche Mode in Miami: The grawbing hanns, grawb all they conn.) The show was every bit the spectacle it's reputed to be: giant puppets, a massive collapsing wall, free-flying remote controlled inflatable pig, etc.

While I was never a Pink Floyd fan, much of the music felt vaguely familiar in that way that massive hit albums used to insinuate themselves into your subconscious whether you dug them or not. That probably doesn't happen anymore. My favorite moment was watching yuppies pump their fists from their $1000 seats to the anti-Big Brother message as they checked their nanny-cam live-streams from their smartphones. By the way, at 67 years old Roger Waters looked and sounded amazing.

Piano Player

Madison Square Garden, Wednesday, 9pm

Stoner Dude: Fuck that, she's not bi. No such thing. She's just softening you up for the big lesbo announcement.

Rock Chick: No such thing? Just because you can't imagine it personally doesn't mean there's no such thing as bisexuals. That's like saying because YOU don't know how to play the piano, there's no such thing as piano players.

Stoner Dude: Actually I'm a rad piano player.

Rock Chick: ......

Morning View - Madison Square Garden

The fourth incarnation of Madison Square Garden sits atop Penn Station in midtown, about a mile and a half from the actual Madison Square, where the first Garden was built in 1879. The current Garden was built in 1968 at the cost of the grand above-ground Beaux Arts portion of Penn Station (which you know if you are watching Mad Men). That decision is now considered one of the greatest travesties in the history of American architecture and led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Below is how the original Penn Station looked on postcards in 1910 when it was built.And here's what the interior looked like.UPDATE: JMG reader Vincent provides another interior shot.