Madison Square is formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States and the principal author of the United States Constitution.
The focus of the square is Madison Square Park, a 6.2 acre (2.5 hectare) public park, which is bounded on the east by Madison Avenue (which starts at the park's southeast corner at 23rd Street); on the south by 23rd Street; on the north by 26th Street; and on the west by Fifth Avenue and Broadway as they cross.
The park and the square are at the northern (uptown) end of the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan. The use of "Madison Square" as a name for the neighborhood has fallen off, and it is rarely heard. The neighborhood to the north and west of the park is NoMad ("NOrth of MADison Square Park") and to the north and east is Rose Hill.
Madison Square is probably best known around the world for providing the name of Madison Square Garden, a sports arena and its successor which were located just northeast of the park for 47 years, until 1925. The current Madison Square Garden, the fourth such building, is not in the area. Notable buildings around Madison Square include the Flatiron Building, the Toy Center, the New York Life Building, the New York Merchandise Mart, the Appellate Division Courthouse, the Met Life Tower, and One Madison Park, a new 50-story condominium tower.
Madison Square can be reached on the New York City Subway using local service on the BMT Broadway Line (N R trains) at the 23rd Street station. In addition, local stops on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4 6 <6> trains) and IND Sixth Avenue Line (F M trains) are one block away at Park Avenue South and Sixth Avenue, respectively.
Read more about Madison Square: Early New York, The Park Opens, Renewal, Ceremonial Arches, Madison Square Garden, In The 20th Century, Madison Square Now, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words madison and/or square:
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)