Plan for New Madison Square Garden Unveiled

The owners of Madison Square Garden announced a plan to replace the arena with a $1-billion office complex and build a new sports arena two blocks away on Manhattan’s West Side in New York.

If approved, the new Madison Square Garden, which would be the fifth arena to bear the name, should open in the fall of 1990, Gulf & Western Industries Inc. said in a prepared statement. The 22,000-seat arena will cost about $200 million.

Gulf & Western said the new Garden would be set above a railroad storage yard and would be served by a new subway stop and a stop on the Long Island Rail Road.

According to Gulf & Western, the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Rangers hockey team would move from the old Garden to the new. The company owns both teams.

It said the present Garden, above Pennsylvania Station at 31st to 33rd streets between Seventh and Eighth avenues, would be razed and replaced with two or three office towers containing four million square feet of space.