The Garden Grows Again

Few landmarks have had as many incarnations as Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. Converted from a rail depot by P. T. Barnum in 1873, the Garden in 1890 moved into new quarters that were designed by Stanford White, the great architect who was shot to death on its roof garden 16 years later by Millionaire Harry K. Thaw, who resented White's flirtation with Thaw's showgirl wife. In 1925 White's Garden was razed, and a new one erected across town from Madison Square on Eighth Avenue. Here, over the years, Joe Louis stiffened his "bum of the month," hockey players scuffled, the circus came indoors, 2,500 pedigreed dogs paraded each year for the Westminster Dog Show, and Billy Graham made mass conversions. Last week the Garden prepared to move again. Its current owner, the Graham-Paige Corp.,/- announced plans for a new $75 million Garden complex atop Manhattan's Pennsylvania Station.

The new Garden, which will be jointly owned by Graham-Paige (75%) and the Pennsylvania Railroad (25%), will hopefully be ready when the 1964 New York World's Fair opens. Designed by Los Angeles Architect Charles Luckman, onetime (1946-50) boy-wonder boss of Lever Bros. Co., the nine-acre complex will include a 25,000-seat main sports arena, a 4,000-seat auxiliary arena, a 28-story luxury hotel, a 34-story office building, and parking facilities for 3,000 cars. Only the sub-street-level waiting room and the train concourse will be kept of the old Penn Station. In order not to interrupt train service, the builders will install a reinforced concrete slab at street level before razing the superstructure of the station.

Main attraction of the Penn Station site, said Pennsy Chairman James M. Symes, is the fact that it "is the hub of mass transportation in New York." Into Penn Station chug 650 trains daily; the station also has direct connections with four subway lines, bus lines, and tunnels and bridges to New Jersey. Currently losing $2,500,000 a year on the maintenance of Penn Station, the Pennsy expects its share of the revenues from the new Garden to cut its operating loss on the station to $1,000,000 annually. Those who mourn Manhattan's disappearing architectural landmarks will not sigh long over the dilapidated Garden on Eighth Avenue, but will regret the leveling of the greyed, Grecian granite Penn Station, whose vaulted open arcade was modeled on the ancient Roman Baths of Caracalla.

/- The former automobile company, which in 1949 sold off all its automotive properties and became solely an investment holding company. Bent exclusively on building up capital, Graham-Paige has not paid a cash dividend since 1926 but has increased its net worth from $2,500,000 to $18.5 million in the past twelve years.

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