madisonsquarepark

Philadelphia Jack O'Brien In December 1920 Tex Rickard announced he was building the world's largest gym in Madison Square Garden (including, in the summer, the world's largest pool) and that Philadelphia Jack O'Brien would be the "physical director". The 1/5th mile track ran around the roof of the old MSG.

Seuss. Thank you for the information on O'Brien and Rickard. Would you have a source that shows the construction date of the track as 1920? I'm able to confirm everything else for the catalog record, but that would allow us to establish a better date for the photograph.

This photo appeared in the Boston Evening Globe, Wednesday, December 29, 1920 - Page 13. In the accompanying picture Harvey Cohn and Philadelphia Jack O'Brien are seen ready to start off on a long jaunt" Cohn was a former member of the Irish Amateur Athletic Club who competed in the Olympics in St. Louis in 1904, 1906 in Athens and 1908 in London. He coached at Indiana and Colby. He coached the Japanese team at the Antwerp Olympics in 1920. His gig atop the Garden didn't last long, as by the summer of 1921 he was announced as the new coach at New Hampshire. O'Brien announced in 1922 that he was ending his association with the Garden and opening another gym on Broadway.

Seuss. Thank you! The additional identification of Cohn is greatly appreciated.

More than two dozen homing pigeons were released in New York City on February 13, 1915, as part of the Poultry and Pigeon Show being held in Madison Square Garden. Officials of the show, pictured above, sent a message of peace, via homing pigeon, to President Wilson, in Washington, DC. On each pigeon's leg was a narrow strip of tissue paper bearing the message: "Universal peace soon will be a god-send". The message was signed by Colonel Lee Crandall. After their arrival in Washington, the pigeons were released the following day at 9:15AM, and almost all of them had arrived in New York City later that day. Three of the pigeons, which belonged to Fred C. Schmidt (pictured above) arrived simultaneously at their loft in Brooklyn at 3:20PM. That six-hour flight was considered to be a "fast flight". — The New York Times                   ( To see the previous photo in this series, click here.)

I was wondering if that was the original Madison Square Garden -- incredible picture.

Pixel Wrangler: thank you for the New York Times article describing what is shown in this image. JE Piper: The photo depicts people releasing pigeons from the roof of the second Madison Square Garden arena which was built at 26th Street and Madison Avenue. Designed by Stanford White, the building opened in 1890 and was demolished in 1925. This photo from the New York Public Library shows a similar roof area during the demolition: digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1691083 We will add some additional information to the description when we update.

This picture was taken BEFORE they had trucks and roads that could get them a big Adirondack Tree

More Bain/LOC photos of the 1913 tree-raising project:

Interestingly, in most of these photographs of the tree-raising in Madison Square, there are, in fact, people in the tree either tying or releasing ropes. They are only visible if you view the larger digital files over at the Library of Congress website by following the link at Persistent URL above. Quite a job!

And here I had figured that "learning the ropes" was only a seafaring term! Aye, aye Cap'n! Ahoy and avast! Batten down the mizzenmast!