Tag: Madison Square Garden

Postcard from the Past: New York, September 1959

TEXT: “Sept 16th and 17th 1959
‘Ice Capades’
Plymouth Hotel Fire at 4:30 AM
Thursday
Merman in ‘Gypsy'”

The Hotel Chesterfield (130-136 West 49th Street), built in 1927, was a luxury accommodation conveniently near Rockefeller Center and various Broadway theaters.

The Ice Capades referred to in this card are the well-reviewed Ice Capades program launched at Madison Square Garden. The Capades were a colossally cheesy ice extravaganza featuring music and elaborate production numbers staged upon a skating rink. The Capades played the Garden for decades, eventually dying out by the early 1990s.

The fire at the building across the street, the 18-floor Hotel Plymouth (137-143 West 49th Street), probably wasn’t severe. It was built in 1929 and often hosted stars from nearby Radio City Music Hall. Neither the Plymouth nor the Chesterfield are still standing today — demolished, in fact, to make way for a couple severe, International Style structures owned by Rockefeller Center.

At least this visitor got to see something truly historic, at least in the annals of Broadway history — Ethel Merman in her classic performance in ‘Gypsy.

This postcard and many others can be found at the Old York Library

New York City “in decay” on primetime TV

I just caught up on all my Mad Men episodes last night and feel foolish that I never mentioned the episode from a couple Sundays ago entitled ‘Love Among The Ruins.’ The AMC TV show, set in the early 1960s Madison Avenue ad agency Sterling Cooper, frequently offers us peeks into classic New York landmarks and history.

‘Love Among The Ruins’ presented a doozy, as Sterling Cooper attempted to woo the Madison Square Garden development firm who was in the process of tearing down old Pennsylvania Station. Upon reading Ada Louise Huxtable’s criticism of said destruction plans, from her New York Times column “How To Kill A City,” one of the stern faced developers remarks, “People know she’s an angry woman with a big mouth.”

One of Sterling Cooper’s own ad men fails to hide his disgust at the plan — “I don’t think it’s crazy to be attached to a Beaux Arts masterpiece through which Teddy Roosevelt came and went” — so it’s Don Draper to save the day.

“New York City is in decay. But Madison Square Garden — it’s the beginning of a new city on a hill.” Don sees the Garden job as a way into the World’s Fair of 1964, a potential boon to a successful ad agency. Hopefully future episodes of the show will take a stab at depicting this Robert Moses pet project.

Mad Men isn’t the only current TV show dealing with New York history. Believe it or not, the kitsch SyFy Channel show Warehouse 13 has used city relics for plot devices. In one prior episode, an ancient Lenape Indian talisman is discovered in a construction dig in the Lower East Side. They even indicate that it’s located at Corlear’s Hook, although it looks more like Vancouver.

And on last week’s show, we found out that the Studio 54 mirrorball actually possesses persuasive supernatural powers. I wonder what powers the man on the moon and his coke spoon have?

You can find a recap for that particular Mad Men episode here and keep your eye out for reruns of the episodes mentioned above.