Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier II

Joe Frazier vs. Muhammad Ali, billed as The Fight, was a heavyweight championship boxing match between WBA, WBC, and The Ring heavyweight champion Joe Frazier and former undisputed heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, on Monday, March 8, 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City.The fight is widely regarded as the biggest boxing match in history and arguably the single most anticipated and publicized sporting event ever. It was the first time ever that two undefeated boxers who held or had held the world Heavyweight title fought each other for that title. The bout held broad appeal for many Americans, including non-boxing and non-sport fans. Ali, who had been stripped of his titles by boxing authorities for refusing to submit to the draft for the Vietnam war, had become a symbol of the anti-establishment public during his government-imposed exile from the ring, while Frazier had been adopted by the pro-war public. Frazier won in 15 rounds by unanimous decision. It was the first of a trio of fights, followed by the rematch fights Super Fight II (1974) and Thrilla in Manila (1975), both won by Ali.

Since 1879, the four arenas known as Madison Square Garden have hosted many sporting events, concerts, and political rallies.

The Six Days of New York was a former six-day cycling event, held in New York City, in Madison Square Garden's velodrome. Between 1899 and 1961, a total of 73 editions were held, sometimes three per year. Only the Six Days of Berlin and the Six Days of Ghent had more runnings. Australian Alfred Goullet and Italian Franco Giorgetti hold the record with eight wins each.

Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylvania Station. It is the fourth venue to bear the name "Madison Square Garden"; 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 Garden is used for professional ice hockey and basketball, as well as boxing, concerts, ice shows, circuses, professional wrestling and other forms of sports and entertainment. It is close to other midtown Manhattan landmarks, including the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's at Herald Square. It is home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA), and was home to the New York Liberty (WNBA) from 1997 to 2017. Originally called Madison Square Garden Center, the Garden opened on February 11, 1968, and is the oldest major sporting facility in the New York metropolitan area. It is the oldest arena in the NBA and the NHL. As of 2016, MSG is also the second-busiest music arena in the world in terms of ticket sales. Including two major renovations its total construction cost was approximately $1.1 billion, and it has been ranked as one of the 10 most expensive stadium venues ever built. It is part of the Pennsylvania Plaza office and retail complex, named for the railway station. Several other operating entities related to the Garden share its name.

The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden is a theater located in New York City's Madison Square Garden. It seats between 2,000 and 5,600 for concerts and can also be used for meetings, stage shows and graduation ceremonies. No seat is more than 177 feet (54 m) from the 30-by-64-foot (9.1 by 19.5 m) stage. Since it is located beneath the main Madison Square Garden arena, the theater has a relatively low 20-foot (6.1 m) ceiling at stage level and all of its seating except for boxes on the two side walls is on one level slanted back from the stage. There is an 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) lobby at the theater.

Pennsylvania Station, often abbreviated to Penn Station, was a historic railroad station in New York City, named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original tenant. The station occupied an 8-acre (3.2 ha) plot bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in Midtown Manhattan. As the station shared its name with several stations in other cities, it was sometimes called New York Pennsylvania Station. The building was designed by McKim, Mead, and White and completed in 1910, enabling direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. Its head house and train shed were considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style and one of the great architectural works of New York City. The station contained 11 platforms serving 21 tracks, in approximately the same layout as the current Penn Station. The original building was one of the first stations to include separate waiting rooms for arriving and departing passengers, and when built, these were among the city's largest public spaces. Passenger traffic began to decline after World War II, and in the 1950s, the Pennsylvania Railroad sold the air rights to the property and shrank the railroad station. Starting in 1963, the above-ground head house and train shed were demolished, a loss that galvanized the modern historic preservation movement in the United States. Over the next six years, the below-ground concourses and waiting areas were heavily renovated, becoming the modern Penn Station, while Madison Square Garden and Pennsylvania Plaza were built above them. The sole remaining portions of the original station are the underground platforms and tracks, as well as scattered artifacts on the mezzanine level above it.

Pennsylvania Station, also known as New York Penn Station or simply Penn Station, is the main intercity railroad station in New York City and the busiest transportation facility in the Western Hemisphere, serving more than 600,000 passengers per weekday as of 2019. It is located in Midtown Manhattan, beneath Madison Square Garden in the block bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets, and in the James A. Farley Building, with additional exits to nearby streets. It is close to Herald Square, the Empire State Building, Koreatown, and Macy's Herald Square. Penn Station has 21 tracks fed by seven tunnels (the two North River Tunnels, the four East River Tunnels, and the single Empire Connection tunnel). It is at the center of the Northeast Corridor, a passenger rail line that connects New York City to Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and intermediate points. Intercity trains are operated by Amtrak, which owns the station, while commuter rail services are operated by the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and NJ Transit (NJT). Connections are available within the complex to the New York City Subway and buses. Penn Station is named for the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), its builder and original owner, and shares its name with several stations in other cities. The current facility is the remodeled underground remnant of the original Pennsylvania Station, a more ornate station building designed by McKim, Mead, and White and considered a masterpiece of the Beaux-Arts style. Completed in 1910, it enabled direct rail access to New York City from the south for the first time. Its head house was torn down in 1963, galvanizing the modern historic preservation movement. The rest of the station was rebuilt in the following six years, while retaining most of the rail infrastructure from the original station. A new direct entrance from 33rd Street to the LIRR concourse opened in December 2020. Moynihan Train Hall, an expansion of Penn Station into a mixed-use redevelopment of the adjacent Farley Post Office building, opened in January 2021.Plans call for further expanding the LIRR concourse, adding railway platforms in a new southern annex to accommodate two proposed Gateway Program tunnels under the Hudson River, and renovating the core Penn Station under Madison Square Garden.

Pennsylvania Plaza (Penn Plaza) is the office, entertainment and hotel complex occupying and near the site of Pennsylvania Station, between 31st and 34th streets and Seventh and Eighth avenues in New York City. It includes the current Madison Square Garden and its Theater, opened in 1968; the current below-ground Pennsylvania Station; and the One Pennsylvania Plaza and Two Pennsylvania Plaza office buildings. Other buildings around the complex use the Pennsylvania Plaza name as an alternate address, such as the 5 Penn Plaza office building on Eighth Avenue, to the northwest; the Pennsylvania Building at 225 West 34th Street (14 Penn Plaza), north of the station; and the Hotel Pennsylvania at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza), east of the station. The numbering of the Penn Plaza addresses around the area does not follow a consistent pattern.The Penn Plaza complex remains one of the most controversial in New York City history because it involved the destruction, beginning in 1963, of the original McKim, Mead and White–designed Penn Station (1910), a revered piece of New York architecture. Its replacements were what architects and civic purists regard as mediocre office and entertainment structures.The demolition of the first Penn Station led to the city's landmarks preservation movement and helped save another landmark of railway architecture, Grand Central Terminal.With the sports arena and railroad station at its hub and 34th Street retailers (including Macy's) nearing the complex, Pennsylvania Plaza remains one of the busier transportation, business and retailing neighborhoods in Manhattan.

The Big Apple Comic Con is a New York City comic book convention, the longest-running comic book/speculative fiction/pop culture convention in New York City. It was started by retailer Michael "Mike Carbo" Carbonaro in March 1996 in the basement of the St. Paul the Apostle Church. During its heyday from 2001 to 2008, the Big Apple Comic Con often featured multiple shows per year, with a large three-day "national" convention held in November, usually held at the Penn Plaza Pavilion. The show was owned by Wizard Entertainment from 2009 to 2013, but was reacquired by Carbonaro in 2014. Over the course of its history, the convention has been known as the Big Apple Convention, the Big Apple Comic Book Art, and Toy Show, and the Big Apple Comic Book, Art, Toy & Sci-Fi Expo; with the larger three-day November shows known as the National Comic Book, Art, Toy, and Sci-Fi Expo, the National Comic Book, Art, and Sci-Fi Expo, and the National Comic Book, Comic Art, and Fantasy Convention. In 2014, the name "Big Apple Convention" was revived by Carbonaro for its March 2015 show. Though it primarily focuses on comic books, the convention features a large range of pop culture elements, such as books, cinema, science fiction/fantasy, television, animation, anime, manga, toys, horror, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels. Along with panels, seminars, and workshops with comic book professionals, the Big Apple Comic Con often features previews of upcoming films, and such evening events as the costume contest overseen by "Captain Zorikh" Zorikh Lequidre.The convention regularly hosts hundreds of artists, exhibitors, and film and television personalities in a huge floorspace for exhibitors. The show includes autograph and photo op opportunities with all of the guests, as well as the Artists' Alley where comics artists can sign autographs and sell or do free sketches.

The Office of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Inspector General (OIG) is the Office of Inspector General specific to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) that is responsible for conducting monitoring and oversight of MTA activities, programs, and employees. Carolyn Pokorny most recently held the post of Inspector General from 2019-2021.OIG provides oversight and monitors the activities of the MTA in order to ensure a safe, reliable, clean, and affordable public transportation system in the New York metropolitan area. Through its investigations, audits, legal work, and other studies, the OIG works to help the MTA improve its performance and to enhance the quality, efficiency, effectiveness, and safety of its agencies' operations and substantiate allegations of waste, fraud, and abuse.

One Penn Plaza (1 Penn Plaza) is a skyscraper in New York City, located between 33rd Street and 34th Street, west of Seventh Avenue, and adjacent to Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. It is the tallest building in the Pennsylvania Plaza complex of office buildings, hotels, and entertainment facilities.

New York City Guitar School is a teaching and performance institution with locations in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Westchester County. Founded in 2004, by guitarist and teacher Dan Emery, the school began as a single room in the Recording and Rehearsal Arts Building, on West 30th Street, in Manhattan's Chelsea district. The school's five studios currently serve a population of over 2500 students, offering students of multiple skill levels private lessons and small group classes. Additionally, New York City Guitar School offers tutelage in other instruments, Suzuki method courses for young children, and band programs for kids, teens, and adults. Jen Elliott, who was involved with the school from its 2004 inception, became a co-owner of the company in 2012. She and Dan Emery act as the school's co-directors and program coordinators.