Boston Garden

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The Boston Garden was an arena built in 1928 and demolished in 1998 after the completion of its new successor arena, the FleetCenter, now called TD Banknorth Garden.

Boxing promoter Tex Rickard, who built the third incarnation of New York's Madison Square Garden, built the "Boston Madison Square Garden" in 1928. The name got clipped to Boston Garden.

Rickard built the arena specifically with boxing in mind, believing that every seat should be close enough to see the "sweat on the boxers' brows." Because of this design theme, when the larger hockey and basketball playing areas were used, fans were much closer to the players than in most arenas, leading to a distinct hometown advantage. The closeness also created spectacular acoustic effects; one legendary story had a lone fan, sitting in the cheapest seats in the arena, harranguing Bruins player Ed Westfall from across the length of the ice, and Westfall turning and giving him "the finger". When teams made playoff appearances, and a sold out crowd was chanting or screaming, the impact was enormous; even the notoriously loud Chicago Stadium could not match the noise of the smaller Garden. The change from the Garden to the TD Banknorth Garden remarkably coincided with the demise in popularity and success of both the Bruins and the Celtics with local fans.

The Garden sat on top of North Station, a train station, which is a hub for MBTA Commuter Rail trains and Amtrak trains. Over the years the Garden was home to the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins. It hosted many events, including rock concerts, amateur sports, boxing and wrestling cards, circuses and ice shows. It was also used as an exposition hall for political rallies such as the famous speech by John F. Kennedy in November, 1960. The last NHL hockey game played there took place on Sunday, May 14 1995. It was Game 5 of an Eastern Conference quarterfinal series between the Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils. The Devils edged the Bruins, 3-2, winning the series 4 games to 1.

The facility hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 1951, 1952, 1957, and 1964, and the NHL All-Star Game in 1971. It additionally was the site of the 1993 WWF Survivor Series. The NCAA Frozen Four was contested there from 1972-74.

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The Garden was famous for its parquet floor that the Boston Celtics played on; however, the parquet floor was not originally part of the Garden. The parquet floor was built and installed in the Boston Arena, but was moved to the Garden in 1952. It is said that the Celtics knew which way the basketball would bounce off any particular section of the floor, and that this was one contributing factor to the Celtics' many National Basketball Association championships. The floor became as much a part of Boston sports lore as the Green Monster of Fenway Park. When FleetCenter was completed, the floor was moved there, but was soon replaced by a replica floor when the old floor became too old to play on.

Rock band Led Zeppelin was banned from performing at the Boston Garden in 1975 after concert fans were allowed in the lobby due to sub-freezing temperatures while waiting for tickets to go on sale for a Zeppelin show. Turning on the generosity of their hosts, some of the fans rioted, leading then-mayor of Boston, Kevin H. White to cancel the upcoming show and ban the group for five years. KISS was banned from performing at the Boston Garden as well.

English art rock band Pink Floyd were the first band to perform at the Boston Garden with a stage set that cost over $1 million on their 1977 Animals tour. This and their 1975 performance at the same venue are available on ROIO recordings.

Fellow English rock band Jethro Tull performed at the Boston Garden as a headlining act more times than any other rock band with 15 headlining performances between 1972 and 1980.

Rock band Grateful Dead performed at the Boston Garden more times than any other band with 24 accumulated performances from 1970 to 1990 either as an opener or headliner.

Detroit rocker Bob Seger recorded a bulk of his 1981 double live album Nine Tonight at The Boston Garden in October, 1980. Five years before, The J. Geils Band recorded most of their November, 1975 show at The Boston Garden for their 1976 double live album Blow Your Face Out.

The Garden was infamous for several design flaws as well, such as seating that was obstructed by enormous cement pillars. Some seats were situated directly behind them. The hockey rink was undersized, which threw visiting players off their games. Its visitor's dressing room was notoriously small, hot, and underserved by plumbing; the Los Angeles Lakers developed a special hatred for it. Rats made the bowels of the Garden their home and, for a time, monkeys escaped from the circus lived in the rafters. The Garden had no air conditioning (which showed in Game 5 of the 1984 NBA Finals, otherwise known as the "Heat Game"), and the electrical systems were notoriously unreliable. The Boston Bruins' last two Stanley Cup finals appearances were both disrupted by power outages. On May 24, 1988 a power transformer blew up during Game 4 of the finals series between the Bruins and the Edmonton Oilers: the contest officially ended in a 3-3 tie. Two years later, on May 15, 1990, the lights went out during an overtime finals game between the same two teams. Luckily, the lights got turned back on this time, and Game 1 of the series ended with a 3-2 triple overtime win for the visiting Oilers.

In addition to TD Banknorth Garden, two other NBA arenas have parquet floors, including Target Center in Minneapolis, MN and TD Waterhouse Centre in Orlando, FL

The last event to have been held at the Boston Garden was a preseason game between the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Canadiens on September 28, 1995.