Madison Square Garden Back to Life after $1b Renovation

The famous Madison Square Garden in New York City was reopened and unveiled last Friday following a $1 billion renovation that has seen it transformed into a magnificent state-of-the-art arena.

From Mohammed Ali, through President J. F. Kennedy to Azumah Nelson and many other greats, Madison Square Garden has hosted sports legends, presidents, music superstars and all that, and is popularly known to Ghanaians as it's the stage where Ghana's now-retired former world boxing champion Azumah Nelson did many of his battles during his legendary fighting career, including his first world title fight in 1982 against Salvador Sanchez.

Known as "the world's most famous arena", at least by Americans, Madison Square Garden, located in the heart of New York City in midtown Manhattan, was shut down in 2009 for three summers for about five months every year to allow a comprehensive face-lift that has cost the owners a whopping $1 billion and brought about its related spectacular upgrade.

This spectacular upgrade, which has seen a complete new development and a brand new arena of state-of-the-art facilities, includes the unique Chase Bridges - two giant, floating bridges that will give spectators or audience a spectacular view on top of events.

Murray Beynon, who created Toronto's magnificent Sky Dome, said of the bridges: “It gets people right out there in a totally unique way. These are the most unique seats in a sports arena. There is nothing like that anywhere in the world.”

The new Garden, home ground of New York basketball teams, Knicks and Rangers, also includes two state-of-the-art 600sq-foot video screens mounted on the ceiling, with a ground-breaking HD video and graphics as a unique feature. It has two balconies – a seating balcony and the Eighteen 76 balcony for a social gathering space, with direct view into the arena bowl.

Madison Square Garden co-president and chief executive Hank Ratner is so elated about the new development, describing it as “hugely significant for the city (New York).” He added, “It really was our mission to go the people of New York and ask them what they wanted. The fans told us what amenities they wanted and we set out to deliver. We have tried to make MSG interesting and compelling – exciting for every guest who comes into the building.

“We have built a brand new arena inside the iconic building and we kept the flavour and feel of the memories that have occurred here. We started off with a 134-year-old icon that often transports people back to experiences with their parents and grand-parents taking them to their first events at Madison Square Garden.”

The new arena, selected to stage New York's host of the 2015 NBA All-Star game, is already on the go, having already staged a pre-season basketball game between New York Knicks and Charlotte Bolcats. And upcoming events this week at the 'stage of legends' includes basketball games (Knicks v Milwaukee Bucks and Rangers v Carolina Hurricane), and an Ed Sheeran concert.

It will also stage consecutive concerts by American music star Kanye West in November and British star Elton John – who holds the record of most appearances at the Garden with 64 – also returns to his favourite ground with two shows later in the year.