One Worldwide Plaza
825 8th Avenue | also 301 West 49th Street, 309 West 49th Street, 308 West 50th Street | Hell's Kitchen | built 1987
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1925
Tex Rickard opens the third Madison Square Garden on this site
Boxing promoter Tex Rickard built the third Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, on the site of trolley barns, in 349 days for $4.75 million. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb, it opened on December 15, 1925. The Rangers played here from 1926 and the Knicks from 1946 until the arena closed in 1968; demolition finished in early 1969.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1939
The pro-Nazi German American Bund holds a rally of 20,000 at the Garden
On February 20, 1939, the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization, filled the Madison Square Garden that stood on this site with a rally of about 20,000 people. The arena hosted many other events over its four decades, from boxing and circuses to the May 1962 birthday celebration for President John F. Kennedy at which Marilyn Monroe performed.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1951
Rocky Marciano knocks out Joe Louis in the eighth round at the third Madison Square Garden
On the lot where the tower now stands, the old Madison Square Garden hosted the heavyweight fight of October 26, 1951. Rocky Marciano floored Joe Louis with a left hook in the eighth round, then sent him through the ropes with a right hand. Louis never fought again. Marciano is said to have cried in Louis's dressing room afterward, upset at having beaten his boyhood idol.
Source: boxingnewsonline.net
- 1954
Liberace packs the old Garden with 14,000 fans
On May 26, 1954, pianist and showman Liberace performs at the third Madison Square Garden, then standing on this Eighth Avenue block, drawing a crowd of about 14,000. The concert is one of many uses for the arena, which since 1925 had also hosted circuses, rodeos, and political rallies.
Source: Daytonian in Manhattan
- 1968
Crews demolish the third Madison Square Garden
In 1968, wreckers tear down the third Madison Square Garden on Eighth Avenue after the new Madison Square Garden opens atop Pennsylvania Station. The cleared block becomes a parking lot for nearly two decades before construction begins on Worldwide Plaza in the mid-1980s.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1986
Community Board 4 opposes Worldwide Plaza, and William Zeckendorf Jr. promises affordable housing
Manhattan Community Board 4 opposed the project, objecting to the towers' height and the absence of housing for low- and moderate-income residents. Residents feared that tenants and family businesses would be pushed out, and some asked Ogilvy & Mather to withdraw. In early 1986 William Zeckendorf Jr. promised to renovate 132 apartments elsewhere in the neighborhood and also promised storefronts for neighborhood merchants, a day-care center and job training. The Board of Estimate approved the plan that July.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1988
Cravath, Swaine & Moore takes 370,000 square feet, and Zeckendorf must buy and demolish an adult theater
In August 1988 the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore signed for 370,000 square feet and received a 7 percent equity stake in Worldwide Plaza in return. At that moment every corporate law and accounting firm in Manhattan had its offices east of Sixth Avenue. The lease also obliged Zeckendorf to buy and tear down an adult movie theater just north of the tower. Cravath and Ogilvy & Mather each got private entrances and elevators.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1989
Matt Mullican's black granite mural at the 50th Street subway station maps the site's past
The 50th Street station, rehabilitated alongside the new office tower, received a sandblasted black granite mural by Matt Mullican in 1989. It measures 8 by 68 feet. Drawn in simple pictographs, it lays out a timeline of the station site's history, with its rural past, a cabin, the earlier Madison Square Garden, maps and aerial views.
Source: mta.info
- 1989
Worldwide Plaza's copper-crowned tower rises on the old Garden's parking lot
After the Garden was demolished, the site was a parking lot for about two decades. William Zeckendorf Jr.'s group bought it in 1984, and David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed a 778-foot, 50-story tower with a pyramidal copper roof and glass lantern. Completed in June 1989, it opened with Ogilvy & Mather and Cravath, Swaine & Moore as anchor tenants.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- One Worldwide PlazaWikipedia
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