page_title: Madison Square and Madison Square Park
section_title: Early history of the area
hierarchical_section_title: Madison Square and Madison Square Park / Early history of the area
caption_attribution_description: Illustration of the Madison Cottage
context_page_description: Madison Square is a public square formed by the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway at 23rd Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The square was named for James Madison, fourth President of the United States. The focus of the square is Madison Square Park, a 6.2-acre public park, which is bounded on the east by Madison Avenue; on the south by 23rd Street; on the north by 26th Street; and on the west by Fifth Avenue and Broadway as they cross.
  The park and the square are at the northern end of the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan. The neighborhood to the north and west of the park is NoMad and to the north and east is Rose Hill.
  Madison Square is probably best known around the world for providing the name of Madison Square Garden, a sports arena and its successor which were located just northeast of the park for 47 years, until 1925. The current Madison Square Garden, the fourth such building, is not in the area.
context_section_description: The area where Madison Square is now had been a swampy hunting ground crossed by Cedar Creek – which was later renamed Madison Creek – from east to west, and first came into use as a public space in 1686.  It was a Potter's Field in the 1700s. In 1807, "The Parade", a tract of about 240 acres (97.12 hectares) from 23rd to 34th Streets and Third to Seventh Avenues, was set aside for use as an arsenal, a barracks, and a drilling area. There was a United States Army arsenal there from 1811 until 1825 when it became the New York House of Refuge for the Society for the Protection of Juvenile Delinquents, for children under sixteen committed by the courts for indefinite periods. In 1839 the building was destroyed by fire. The size of the tract was reduced in 1814 to 90 acres (36.42 hectares), and it received its current name.
  In 1839, a farmhouse located at what is now Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street was turned into a roadhouse under the direction of William "Corporal" Thompson (1807–1872), who later renamed it "Madison Cottage", after the former president. The roadhouse was the last stop for people traveling northward out of the city, or the first stop for those arriving from the north; visitors were encouraged not to sleep more than five to a bed.  Though Madison Cottage itself was razed in 1852, but it ultimately gave rise to the names for the adjacent avenue (Madison Avenue) and park, which are therefore only indirectly named after President James Madison.
  The roots of the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, one of the first professional baseball teams, are in Madison Square.  Amateur players began in 1842 to use a vacant sandlot at 27th and Madison for their games and, eventually, Alexander Cartwright suggested they draw up rules for the game and start a professional club.  When they lost their sandlot to development, they moved across the Hudson River to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they played their first game in 1846.
caption: "Madison Cottage", also known as "Corporal Thompson's Roadhouse"[1] at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, in 1852
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