The Garden gets new retail store - Madison Square Garden - hardlines - Brief Article

DSN Retailing Today, Jan 5, 2004

As entertainment and sporting venues go, few enjoy as storied a past as Madison Square Garden. This icon of New York City has seen everything from Ali-Frazier and Elvis to Madonna and Gretzky.

Now, "The Garden," as it is referred to by New Yorkers, has a new retail concept named after it. Located one block from Madison Square Garden, the recently renovated 155,000-square-foot Manhattan Mall is home to the new 1,600-square-foot Madison Square Garden store. The store opened last month and offers an assortment of licensed merchandise of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New York Liberty women's basketball team. In addition, customers can purchase tickets to Madison Square Garden or Radio City Music Hall events.

What the store lacks in size, it will make up for in customer traffic. Approximately 500,000 commuters pass through the vicinity of the Manhattan Mall as it sits atop a hub where nine subway lines and the train to New Jersey converge.

The opening of the store was made possible as a result of redevelopment of a site that for many decades was home to Gimbel's department store. It subsequently became a Stern's department store, but Stern's parent company, Federated Department Stores, eventually withdrew from the market. That led to the development of the Manhattan Mall, a four-level structure with two above-ground and two below-ground levels. The Madison Square Garden store is on the first lower level.