Madison Square Garden, also known as The Garden or MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena located in Midtown Manhattan. It first opened in its current location on February 11th, 1968, and has a varying capacity depending on the event, for basketball games, the capacity is 19,812. The arena is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Madison Square Garden is the fourth venue to bear the name, the first two (1879 and 1890) were located on Madison Square, on East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, with the third Madison Square Garden (1925) farther uptown at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street.

The arena is used for professional ice hockey and basketball, as well as boxing, mixed martial arts, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment. The capacity varies depending on the event. For basketball games, the capacity is 19,812. For ice hockey games, the capacity is 18,006. For concerts, the capacity can be up to 20,000.

New York Knicks Maddison Square Garden
New York Knicks

How to Get to New York

New York is one of the easiest US cities to fly direct to from the UK, it is served by 2 airports, New York JFK (JFK) or Newark (EWR) airports and you can fly from London Heathrow (LHR), London Gatwick (LGW), London City (LCY) and Manchester (MAN). You can fly with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, United Airways, Delta, American Airlines, and a plethora of other airlines.

If you are already in the US and looking to travel to/from New York, then you have the choice of most US domestic airlines including Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, American Eagle, Frontier Airlines, Jet Blue, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, United Airways and WestJet.

Public Transport

Madison Square Garden is accessible via subway, Long Island Railroad, and buses. The Pennsylvania subway station is directly below the arena. There are also several lines of the Long Island Railroad which stop at 34th Street and Sixth Avenue, a short walk from the MSG. Multiple bus routes service the arena with bus stops nearby.

With so many options you could make use of free apps such as Moovit to get real-time timetables, maps and directions to the arena using local public transportation systems.

Rideshare services are also available in the vicinity with a designated drop off/pick up zone at the arena.

Staying in New York

Madison Square Garden is in the Midtown Manhattan neighbourhood of New York City. The area has a lot to offer tourists, popular attractions beyond Madison Square Garden include The National 9/11 Memorial & Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Skyline, and One World Observatory.

Beyond the Airbnb and Sonder options there are many hotels nearby to suit all budgets, which can be booked directly or via one of the hotel reservation booking sites. Some options close to Madison Square Garden include Kimpton Hotel Eventi (0.26 mi), Arlo Nomad (0.50 mi) and Millennium Times Square New York (0.62 mi).

New York Knicks Tickets

The New York Knicks sell their tickets via Ticketmaster.

The official ticket partner for the NBA is nbatickets.nba.com.

Here are links to the main ticket resale sites. Click on the link, which will open up a new window, and you can compare the prices on the different ticket resell sites, bearing in mind that the prices shown are before the selling platform fees are added, so take time to have a read of my tips to Buying Tickets in North America.

I recommend downloading the team’s Mobile App to your phone as it contains much Gameday information for the stadium.

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