Last Round in the Garden

New York City went all out for its fourth Democratic National Convention. A radio and stereo store on West 57th Street stocked up on cassettes of Ronald Reagan movies; the Reverend Howard Moody of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village rented a van, furnished with carpets, paintings, and refreshments, to offer bawds a “sanctuary” from police harassment; cabbies received stern warnings to abide by the prices on their meters (one intrepid driver was caught charging $132 for an $8 ride from Central Park to Brooklyn; rumors have it he has since been recruited by the Department of Health and Human Services); and Seventh Avenue was the scene of a peaceful pre-Convention parade of ten thousand leftists, including Citizens’ Party candidate Barry Commoner, the PLO observer at the United Nations, and several animal liberationists. It could have been worse—eight years ago, they would have been delegates. If it did nothing else, McGovernism has at least taught the Democrats the importance of social graces.

Some months ago, one of NR’s political writers turned up his nose at the architecture of Queens. Yet even Queens can have few structures as ugly as Madison Square Garden; and Queens, to its vast credit, never destroyed buildings as beautiful as the old Pennsylvania Station in order to erect them. The present Garden (it is ten blocks away from Madison Square) squats on its block like an oversized gun turret. The façades of the surrounding buildings echo the pillars of the vanished train station. A quonset hut on the Acropolis would fit in equally well.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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New York City went all out for its fourth Democratic National Convention. A radio and stereo store on West 57th Street stocked up on cassettes of Ronald Reagan movies; the Reverend Howard Moody of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village rented a van, furnished with carpets, paintings, and refreshments, to offer bawds a “sanctuary” from police harassment; cabbies received stern warnings to abide by the prices on their meters (one intrepid driver was caught charging $132 for an $8 ride from Central Park to Brooklyn; rumors have it he has since been recruited by the Department of Health and Human Services); and Seventh Avenue was the scene of a peaceful pre-Convention parade of ten thousand leftists, including Citizens’ Party candidate Barry Commoner, the PLO observer at the United Nations, and several animal liberationists. It could have been worse—eight years ago, they would have been delegates. If it did nothing else, McGovernism has at least taught the Democrats the importance of social graces.

Some months ago, one of NR’s political writers turned up his nose at the architecture of Queens. Yet even Queens can have few structures as ugly as Madison Square Garden; and Queens, to its vast credit, never destroyed buildings as beautiful as the old Pennsylvania Station in order to erect them. The present Garden (it is ten blocks away from Madison Square) squats on its block like an oversized gun turret. The façades of the surrounding buildings echo the pillars of the vanished train station. A quonset hut on the Acropolis would fit in equally well.