Short answers, pulled from the story.
The current Madison Square Garden opened on the 11th of February, 1968, on the site of the demolished original Pennsylvania Station. It was originally called Madison Square Garden Center and is the fourth venue to bear the name.
There have been four venues named Madison Square Garden. The first opened in 1879 and the second in 1890, both located on Madison Square at East 26th Street and Madison Avenue. The third opened in 1925 at Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, and the current arena opened in 1968 in Midtown Manhattan above Pennsylvania Station.
Billy Joel holds the record for most appearances at Madison Square Garden, with 150 performances as of July 2024. His total includes a monthly residency he began in 2014 that ran for nearly a decade. In 2013 he was named the Garden's first music "franchise."
Madison Square Garden has enjoyed tax-free status since the 1980s, on the condition that all New York Knicks and New York Rangers home games must be played there. If that condition is not met, the tax exemption is voided. An act-of-God clause permitted teams to play elsewhere during the 2020 NBA Bubble and 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2023, the New York City Council voted 48-0 to renew Madison Square Garden's operating permit for five years, the shortest permit ever granted to the arena. In May 2026, Amtrak announced its Penn Station redevelopment plan, under which Madison Square Garden will remain at its current location.
Madison Square Garden began deploying facial recognition in 2018 under security chief John Eversole, making it one of the first venues in the nation to do so. By 2022, owner James Dolan had expanded its use to bar attorneys involved in litigation against his businesses, and by 2025 the system was also being used to ban basketball fans who had publicly criticized Dolan's ownership of the Knicks.