Looks like Madison Square Garden might be getting the boot.
New York lawmakers have voted 47-1 to give the New York landmark arena a 10-year limited permit to reside where it now in it’s midtown location.
Knicks superfan Spike Lee as well as Knicks greats Earl Monroe and Walt Frazier passionately spoke at the council before they made their decision, urging the lawmakers to extended the permit indefinitely.
However, this plea fell on deaf years and MSG will have to find a new home after the next decade.
“Madison Square Garden will have to move, and I think this permit sends the message that that work needs to begin now,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. “We need to make sure Penn Station becomes what we need it to be, a really 21st century grand entrance into the greatest city in the world, not … what Sen. [Daniel] Moynihan or others historically described as a bunch of rat tunnels that lead people in and out of the city every day.”
The Madison Square Garden company also added it’s two cents into the matter.
“Madison Square Garden has operated at its current site for generations, and has been proud to bring New Yorkers some of the greatest and most iconic moments in sports and entertainment,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “We now look forward to the reopening of the arena in fall 2013, following the completion of our historic, three-year, nearly billion-dollar transformation, which will ensure our future is as bright as our celebrated past.”
Well, they do say all good things must come to an end, let’s hope MSG will continue to be a landmark for New York City as it has been for so long.
Barclays can’t be the only hot spot holding New York down!
SOURCE: NY Daily News
