This week The Post takes a new look at the “best of” New York’s sporting history – an area that is equally worthy of debate, but it has never been debated endlessly. Today’s edition: the best arena or stadium in New York City.
You can be a basketball star or hockey player from New York anywhere, or basketball player or hockey player or coach, or boxer, or announcer or announcer. Or you can be anyone who dreams of coming in and going on to the biggest and brightest stage of all:
The Most Famous Arena in the World.
Over the past 52 years on Penn Station, and on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Street for the previous 43 years.
“I can conclude with what Frank Sinatra said to me,” legendary Park photographer George Kalinsky told The Post. “He said, ‘There is no arena or stadium in the world that has the aura of Madison Square Garden.'”
Kalinsky recalled Sinatra, who dreamed of becoming a world heavyweight champion, telling her how pleased she was because Howard Cosell introduced her as a “World Heavy Singer” at the 1974 concert called “The Main Event.”
Kalinsky also photographed Elton John and John Lennon when they performed together in the Garden, and Elvis, and Mark Messier happily holding the Stanley Cup to heaven, and Muhammad Ali, and Willis Reed hobbled out to the heart forever New York, and Peggy Fleming to a special show about NBC, and of course Pope John Paul II held the 6-year-old Geralyn Smith by shin above Popemobile in 1979.
“There is greatness to it,” Marv Albert told The Post, “whatever the event. There is history and charm that no other building has.”
Yes !!!
Marvelous Marv remembers his ears appearing on the night the Knicks won their first championship. “To this day,” he said, “I’ve never heard a crowd so loud.”
Mecca Basketball.
Albert, born in Brooklyn, was asked to provide a report on “Fight of the Century” – Ali-Frazier I – for WNBC radio. Kalinsky has trained Sinatra for her photography assignments for Life Magazine. “Ali’s entrance, and walking into the ring,” said Albert, “it is a moment that I will not forget.”
Jeff Van Gundy spent 13 seasons on the Knicks bench as an assistant or as a head coach.
“The tunnel,” he told The Post. “I think the tunnel represents history, and all the extraordinary events that have happened there. Second, it was a great time – the return of Willis, the Stanley Cup championship when I was there, to see Mike Keenan fly in the corridor before our match when they marched on motorbikes in the Park, right in the hallway … the [Patrick] Ewing tip-dunk to put us on [1994] Final … four-point drama Larry Johnson.
Madison Square ParkN.Y. Post: Taidgh Barron
“And then the thing I like most about training there in particular is the passion from the fan base. It was a great help for the coaching staff where you could win seven, eight in a row at that time, and if you go out and play in the first quarter that is not excited, they will tell you. So you don’t have to be the one who always tries to encourage the team. “
Van Gundy remembers how electricity can rattle in the Park.
“I have to say the four-point game is Larry Johnson, and Pat Riley is back [as Heat coach]”For a far different reason,” he said. “Both of them evoke this extraordinary intensity.”
For a decade, Adam Graves enjoyed the warmth of the extraordinary intensity of the Blue Seaters who worship at the Rangers altar.
“The first time I stepped into the Ice Park, the brightness of the light and energy of the building was extraordinary,” Graves said. “It’s hard to put into words. It’s a special feeling. I quickly realized how special I was as a Ranger who called the Madison Square Garden home.”
The Garden rocked during the heyday of the Big East Conference – when Ewing and Chris Mullin and Pearl Washington and Eddie Pinckney played and Lou Carnesecca and Big John Thompson and Rollie Massimino and Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun trained.
“When you step into court at MSG, you step into the biggest arena in the largest city in the world,” Carnesecca said.
“There were so many great moments for me, from the first time I practiced there in 1950 to my first Eastern Great Championship in 1982 – my Sweater and Retirement banners went up to Garden Rafters in 2001.
“It’s an honor to take the same court with so many great coaches like Joe Lapchick, Clair Bee, Nat Holman and Frank McGuire.”
You can be a wide-eyed ring broadcaster when Roberto Duran gets ready to talk about Davey Moore for the junior welterweight title.
“There I was in the Holy Land, Park, where some of the biggest fights in boxing history took place … in the same ring that Ali and Frazier faced each other twice, along with so many other sports legends,” Michael Buffer told The Post . “I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I did not know, or even dared to dream, that for the next four decades I experienced that more thrilling.”
You can become a respected Duke Mike Krzyzewski legend after defeating St John for his 1,000th victory.
“This,” Coach K said, “is a palace.”
The New York Palace sports theater, where Michael and Kobe always give command shows.
