The Bowery Boys: New York City History

So much has happened in and around Madison Square Park -- the leafy retreat at the intersections of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street -- that telling its entire story requires an extra-sized episode, in honor of our 425th episode.Madison Square Park was the epicenter of New York culture from the years following the Civil War to the early 20th century. The park was really at the heart of Gilded Age New York, whether you were rushing to an upscale restaurant like Delmonico’s or a night at the theater or maybe just an evening at one of New York’s most luxurious hotels like the Fifth Avenue Hotel or the Hoffman House.The park is surrounded by some of New York’s most renowned architecture, from the famous Flatiron Building to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, once the tallest building in the world.The square also lends its name, of course, to one of the most famous sports and performing venues in the world – Madison Square Garden. Its origins begin at the northeast corner of the park on the spot of a for