Madison Square - in The 20th Century

In The 20th Century

The park was the site of an unusual public protest in 1901. Oscar Spate, a displaced Londoner, convinced the Parks Commissioner, George Clausen, to allow him to pay the city $500 a year to put 200 cushioned rocking chairs in Madison Square Park, Union Square and Central Park and charge the public 5 cents for their use. Free benches were moved away from shaded areas, and Spate's chairs replaced them. When a heat wave hit the city in July, people in Madison Park refused to pay the nickel that was now required to sit in the shade. The police became involved, and newspapers like the The Sun and William Randolph Hearst's Evening Journal took up the cause. People began going to the park with the intent of sitting and refusing to pay, and a riot occurred involving a thousand men and boys, who chased the chairs' attendant out of the park and overturned and broke up chairs and benches. The police were called, but the disturbance nevertheless continued for several days. On July 11, Clausen annulled the city's 5-year contract with Spate – whose real name was Reginald Seymour – prompting a celebration with bands and fireworks in Madison Square Park attended by 10,000 people. Spate went to court and got a preliminary injunction against Clausen's breaking of the contract, but the judge refused to allow him to force the public to pay. The Evening Journal followed by asking for an injunction against pay chairs, and when this was granted Spate gave up. He sold the chairs to Wanamaker's, where they were advertised as "Historic Chairs".

Two months later, in September, the Seventy-first Regiment Band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee" in the park as recognition of the death by assassination of President William McKinley. The hymn had been McKinley's favorite.

In 1908 the New York Herald installed a giant searchlight among the girders of the Metropolitan Life Tower to signal election results. A northward beam signaled a win for the Republican candidate, and a southward beam for the Democrat. The beam went north, signaling the victory of Republican William Howard Taft.

America's first community Christmas tree was illuminated in Madison Square Park on December 24, 1912, an event which is commemorated by the Star of Hope, installed in 1916 at the southern end of the park. Today the Madison Square Park Conservancy continues to present an annual tree lighting ceremony sponsored by local businesses.

Author Willa Cather described the Madison Square around 1915 in her 1926 novel My Mortal Enemy:

Madison Square was then at the parting of the ways; had a double personality, half commercial, half social, with shops to the south and residences to the north. It seemed to me so neat, after the raggedness of our Western cities; so protected by good manners and courtesy – like an open-air drawing-room. I could well imagine a winter dancing party being given there, or a reception for some distinguished European visitor.

In 1936, to commemorate the centennial of the opening of Madison Avenue, the Fifth Avenue Association donated a tree from the Virginia estate of former president James Madison. It is located toward the center of the eastern perimeter of the park.

The New York City Department of Traffic announced a plan in 1964 to build a parking garage underneath the park, much like the Boston Common, Union Square in San Francisco and MacArthur Park in Los Angeles. The plan was successfully blocked by preservationists, who cited concerns about the damage that the excavation would cause to the park, particularly the roots of its many trees.

On October 17, 1966, a fire at 7 East 23rd Street, resulted in the second most deadly building collapse in the history of the New York City Fire Department, when 12 firefighters – two chiefs, two lieutenants, and eight firefighters – were killed, the department's greatest loss of life before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. A plaque honoring them can be seen on the apartment building currently occupying the site, Madison Green.