There is currently a campaign to get Madison Square Garden, the “home arena” for WWE and the host of this Saturday’s 2013 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony, to move from its location of 4 Pennsylvania Plaza in New York City.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wants the arena to be moved in order for the location to better service the needs of Penn Station and expand it. The station currently sits underneath the arena and is the New York stop for New Jersey Transit, Long Island Railroad and Amtrak trains, and a busy stop for the NYC subway system. Even though MSG is in the last phase of a one billion dollar upgrade, Stringer wants to give it ten years to locate and build another facility somewhere else in the city.
The Garden has a permit to run events and keep their space above Penn Station, and they want an indefinite renewal of the permit, which expired in January. Stringer thinks that if MSG is gone, it would help Penn Station expand and bring more tourists into the city.
The current location for MSG was built after Penn Station removed their above ground train stops in the late 1960s. It’s the fourth location for the arena since it originally opened in 1879. The current location is literally in the center of Manhattan.
