Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for Founding Father James Madison, the fourth president of the United States. The focus of the square is Madison Square Park, a public park, which is bounded on the east by Madison Avenue (which starts at the park's southeast corner at 23rd Street); on the south by 23rd Street; on the north by 26th Street; and on the west by Fifth Avenue and Broadway as they cross.

The park and the square are at the northern (uptown) end of the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan. The neighborhood to the north and west of the park is NoMad ("NOrth of MADison Square Park") and to the north and east is Rose Hill.

Madison Square is probably best known around the world for providing the name of a sports arena called Madison Square Garden. The original arena and its successor were located just northeast of the park for 47 years, until 1925. The current Madison Square Garden, the fourth such building, is not in the area. Notable buildings around Madison Square include the Flatiron Building, the Toy Center, the New York Life Building (built on the site of the first two arenas), the New York Merchandise Mart, the Appellate Division Courthouse, the Met Life Tower, and One Madison, a 50-story condominium tower.

Early history of the area

The area where Madison Square is now had been a swampy hunting ground crossed by Cedar Creek – which was later renamed Madison Creek – from east to west,Blecher, George (August 3, 2018) "Murder, Politics and Architecture: The Making of Madison Square Park" The New York Times and first came into use as a public space in 1686. It was used as a potter's field in the 1700s."Walking Off the Big Apple: Madison Square Part 1" on the Manhattan User's Guide website. Accessed:2011-02-15 In 1807, "The Parade", a tract of about from 23rd to 34th Streets and Third to Seventh Avenues, was designated for use as an arsenal, a barracks, and a drilling area.Mendelsohn (1998), p.13 There was a United States Army arsenal there from 1811 until 1825 when it became the New York House of Refuge for the Society for the Protection of Juvenile Delinquents, for children under sixteen committed by the courts for indefinite periods. In 1839 the building was destroyed by fire.Patterson The size of the tract was reduced in 1814 to , and it received its current name.

In 1839, a farmhouse located at what is now Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street was turned into a roadhouse under the direction of William "Corporal" Thompson (1807–1872), who later renamed it "Madison Cottage", after the former president. The roadhouse was the last stop for people traveling northward out of the city, or the first stop for those arriving from the north; visitors were encouraged not to sleep more than five to a bed. Though Madison Cottage itself was razed in 1852, it ultimately gave rise to the names for the adjacent avenue (Madison Avenue) and park, which are therefore only indirectly named after President James Madison.

The roots of the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, one of the first organized baseball teams, are in Madison Square. Amateur players began in 1842 to use a vacant sandlot at 27th and Madison for their games and, eventually, Alexander Cartwright suggested they draw up rules for the game and start an organized team. When they lost their sandlot to development, they moved across the Hudson River to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they played their first game in 1846.

Opening of the park

On May 10, 1847, the Event Horizon: Mad. Sq. Art.: Antony Gormley installation guide published by the Madison Square Park Conservancy Madison Square Park, indirectly named after President James Madison,Mendelsohn (1995) opened to the public. 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.

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.

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 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.

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.Chiu, Eric. "The New York Crystal Palace: The Birth of a Building" , University of Maryland University Libraries. Accessed May 29, 2016. "The group of investors soon petitioned the Board of Aldermen in New York City for use of Madison Square, located in lower Manhattan where Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet at 23rd Street, to build a 'house of iron and steel for an Industrial Exhibition'. ... However, when the community around Madison Square learned of the project, there were many complaints that it would ruin the aesthetics of the neighborhood, and present a headache of construction and traffic up to and during the exhibition. The case was tried before the Chief Justices of New York City who ruled against the use of Madison Square, but the Board of Aldermen granted the investors the use of Reservoir Square, which was on 42nd Street between Fifth Avenue and what is currently the Avenue of the Americas, in its stead."

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. 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.

Commercialization of the neighborhood

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.Madison Square North Historic District Designation Report , New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, June 26, 2001. Accessed August 1, 2016. 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.Horsley, Carter B. "Fifth Avenue: The Best Address By Jerry E. Patterson" , The City Review. Accessed August 1, 2016. "It boasted a 'vertical railroad,' or elevator, the first installed in a hotel in the United States (though preceded by elevators in a few office buildings). ... The elevator was a great instrument of change in the perception of guests; in the past, rooms on the lower floors had been the most desirable because easier to reach. The upper floors were always cheaper; at the top and least desirable were the servants' rooms." 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. The hotel, which was noted for its "Amen Corner" where Republican political boss Thomas Collier Platt held court in the 1890s,Adams, James Truslow ed. (1940) "Amen Corner" in Dictionary of American History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons was closed and demolished in 1908.Dailey, Jessica. "Remembering NYC's Grandest Forgotten Hotels, in Photos", Curbed New York, June 26, 2013. Accessed May 29, 2017. "The Fifth Avenue Hotel, built in 1859 at 200 Fifth Avenue, had the first passenger elevator ever installed in a U.S. hotel. ... It closed in 1908 and was immediately demolished to make way for the Toy Center Building." It is reported that patrons of the hotel's bar spent $7.000 on drinks on its last day of operation. A plaque on the Toy Center, the building currently on the site, commemorates the hotel.

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. 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 Louvre", 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.

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.Mendelsohn (1998), p.14 No longer primarily residential, Madison Square was still a thriving area.

Worth Square

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 which was erected in 1857 over the tomb of General William Jenkins Worth, who served in the Seminole Wars and the Mexican War, and for whom Fort Worth, Texas, was named, as well as Worth Street in lower Manhattan.Moscow The city's Parks Department designated the area immediately around the monument as a parklet called General Worth Square."General Worth Square" on the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation website

Renewal

Madison Square Park lost some acreage in 1870 when the west side was reduced so that Broadway could be widened and parking provided for hansom cabs, but it was also re-landscaped by William Grant and Ignatz Pilat,White & Willensky a former assistant to Frederick Law Olmsted. The current park maintains their overall design.

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