I was debating on whether or not I should blog on this today and was leaning towards yes, but
Dee's blog today pushed the decision on doing one over the top.
The
Wall Street Journal reported a month ago that City Council speaker Christine Quinn was pushing legislation that would create a new Penn Station and called for a 10-year limit on Madison Square Garden operating in it's current location. On Wednesday, the Council voted nearly unanimously - 47-1 - to approve that 10-year limit, not in perpetuity, as the owners of the Garden had requested, or 15 years, as the Bloomberg administration had hoped.
Deadspin reports that "when the permit comes up again, MSG will have the right to re-apply, and it's impossible to predict what New York's financial and political situations will look like in a decade's time." But, as of now, if take a step back and look at it, the Rangers, Knicks, etc. will need to move on from their 45-year-old premises and find a new home, the Garden’s fifth since it opened in 1879.
MSG has had the moniker of the "World's Most Famous Arena," and while that may have been true in the past and was a draw, the opening of the New Barclays Arena and to a lesser extent the Prudential Center, MSG has clearly fallen to second in the five boroughs and maybe third in the area. Cognizant of that shift, MSG began three-year, $1 million renovation, which while it has made the Garden look nicer, the charm etc. of the building has been lost. In addition, if the Garden does end up needing to be moved for a new Penn Station and possible link - if it ever gets build - to a revised Moynihan post office, it will be a major expense for minimal bang for the buck.
Now on to what Dee wrote:
"Absent from the Newsday article is how much of the City freebies MSG stands to loose in the long run. But interesting that with all this going down in NYC, Master Developer Don Monti has publically backed the MSG plan for the redevelopment of the Nassau Hub over the Ratner plan.
Coincidence? I think not.
Of course MSG and the Dolan Empire want the Nassau Hub property, for many reasons, but this relocation must surely play a part. Ten years passes quickly, very quickly. Just ask Charles Wang about that. So expect that Uniondale will become home of Rangers Long Island in the very, very near future."
Wanting the Nassau Hub to me is solely about business and maximing profit. The annoyance that it may be MSG rather than someone associated with Nassau Coliseum should not be the driving factor on which group wins the bid to build, but rather select the one that provides the potential or maximum revenue for a county that needs. In addition, the espouse the view that the MSG proposal is being done to move the team in 10 years to me is somewhat shortsighted. The Rangers for years have been known as the Broadway Blueshirts and a fixture in Manhattan, same for the Knicks in the various locations. If you think Dolan will shrink like a violet and give up NYC and its surroundings to Prokhorov etc. and move the suburbs, you have another thing coming. Expect a major fight for NY supremacy with the lots of lawsuits and injunctions filed to prevent a move from either taking place in general or within 10 years as they search for a new location for the Garden to be built.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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