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A Deep Dive - Ghislaine Maxwell: Silver Spoons and Hard Times

A Deep Dive - Ghislaine Maxwell: Silver Spoons and Hard Times
This story was published in Frank's Report. Frank Parlato is an investigative journalist. Frank Report is one of the internet’s best destinations for true, unfiltered, hard-hitting journalism run by the acclaimed journalist Frank Parlato.
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Ghislaine Maxwell – Silver Spoons and Hard Times

August 9, 2020
By Paul Serran
https://frankreport.com/2020/08/09/ghislaine-maxwell-silver-spoons-and-hard-times/
http://archive.is/by7md
Ghislaine Maxwell led much of her life under the world’s fascinated microscopic view, always enthralled by her – famous and infamous – as it watched her fortunes wax and wane.
From the celebrated miracle daughter of media tycoon Robert Maxwell; to the broken young woman who fled scandal in the UK to a small New York apartment, trying to launch a new life; the rebirth Jet-set Ghislaine, who was everywhere at once, longtime companion of Jeffrey Epstein, a man even richer and more shady than her father; the sophisticated middle age woman, a runaway alleged criminal trying hard to avoid detection by her pursuers – finally, to the incarcerated, indicted suspected sex trafficker and perjurer.
Ghislaine was Robert and Betty Maxwell’s miracle baby, born on Christmas Day, 1961. Two days after that, their eldest son suffered a fatal car accident.
In 24 hours, it all had been somehow foretold: joy – and then tragedy.
During the Swinging Sixties, Robert Maxwell served two terms as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham. He led a multimillionaire lifestyle, and was the host of star-studded parties at Headington Hill Hall, his baronial fifty-three-room Oxford mansion.
The Maxwells spent a million dollars redecorating the mansion. In a stained glass window scene for the imperial staircase, Israeli sculptor Nehemia Azaz depicted Robert Maxwell as the biblical hero Samson tearing down the gates of Gaza: “a titan of luck, impossible achievement, and unlimited wealth”.
They had the use of chauffeured luxury cars. They traveled the world in Robert’s Gulfstream IV Jet and his sleek 180-foot yacht, named Lady Ghislaine.
“If Bob Maxwell didn’t exist, no one could invent him,” Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock celebrated the bombastic, demanding mogul who dined with kings and presidents and had a bottomless appetite for family, food, fortune, and fame.
The first brush with financial and professional hardship came at a age when young Ghislaine would have been mostly sheltered from it.
In the early seventies, after Robert Maxwell tried similar shenanigans in a failed attempt to swindle the American financier Saul Steinberg, who was interested in a strategic acquisition of Pergamon Press. Steinberg claimed that during negotiations, Maxwell falsely stated that a subsidiary responsible for publishing encyclopedias was extremely profitable.
At the same time, Pergamon had been forced to reduce its profit forecasts for 1969 during the period of negotiations, leading to a suspension of dealing in Pergamon shares on the London stock markets.
It was found that Maxwell had contrived to maximize Pergamon’s share price through transactions between his private family companies. This was a criminal practice he would utilize again in the future.
Inspectors from Britain’s Department of Trade and Industry declared Maxwell unfit to run a public company: “Notwithstanding Mr. Maxwell’s acknowledged abilities and energy, he is not in our opinion a person who can be relied on to exercise proper stewardship of a publicly quoted company.”
‘Captain Bob’ established the Maxwell Foundation in tax haven Liechtenstein, in 1970. By the 1980s he come back roaring, prompted by money later said to have originated in the Soviet Union. He bought the Mirror Group built and a massive media conglomerate.
The good times were on: Ghislaine was nicknamed “The Shopper” because of her wild spending funded by Robert’s millions. He also bankrolled her failed corporate gifts business.
During this period, she reportedly had a VERY close relationship with her father and was widely credited with being her father’s favorite child.
In Oxford, Ghislaine led a student life of wealth and privilege. Her father would send Filipino servants to the college house she shared to clean, arrange the table and cook, in the event of a party.
Her career piggybacked on her father’s businesses. She was made director of the Oxford United, and later, put in charge of “special projects” of the New York Daily News.
With her father’s money, she found her way into society, especially in New York — a haven where she could escape his complete control.
But the good times were not to last. Overextended and over-leveraged, Maxwell’s empire was about to crumble.
At this time, Maxwell reportedly was a regular at London’s casinos, playing three tables at once, even dropping $2.5 million in a single night. For years, he had been an inveterate gambler, but this was the behavior of a desperate man whose time was running out.
“He was a very crude man,” said a female writer for Time magazine. “His polish was not very deep. If you were with him for any length of time, it peeled away. I was in his library in the Maxwell House penthouse—a beautiful apartment with marble and servants all over the place—and while I was admiring his books, his valet said to me, ‘You should see Mr. Maxwell’s collection of pornographic tapes’.”
Ghislaine visited her father in his office before he flew off to Gibraltar. “He was looking for an apartment in New York—a sort of pied-à-terre, where he could talk and have meetings—and he wanted me to help him,” she told Vanity Fair. “He asked me to go see a particular apartment. He said, ‘If you like it, I’ll make time to see it and come to New York.’ ” But the next time Ghislaine saw her father, he was dead.
”Ghislaine is the baby of the family and the one who was closest to her father,” her mother Betty told Vanity Press. ”The whole of Ghislaine’s world has collapsed, and it will be very difficult for her to continue.”
When she finally appeared before the reporters, she had collected herself. “How did your father die?” a journalist shouted at Ghislaine Maxwell. “He did not commit suicide. That was just not consistent with his character. I think he was murdered. ”
Maxwell, it turned out, had debts of nearly $5 billion, and had stolen hundreds of millions from the Mirror Group’s pension funds to shore up his faltering companies. That left 32,000 employees exposed to retirement ruin.
The irony was not lost on the hard-hitting British press: Robert Maxwell, a socialist, stealing hundreds of millions of pounds from the Mirror’s pension fund!
He swindled money from two of his public companies, transferred millions in and out the secret family trusts in Liechtenstein, to manipulate the share price of his Corporation.
Robert was called “rogue,” “crook,” “bully,” “thief,” “megalomaniac,” and “gangster.” The press told lurid tales of his sex orgies with midget Filipino hookers.
He was seen as a 310-pound aberration gorging on spoonfuls of caviar. An erratic and cruel tyrant who used Turkish towels for toilet paper. Journalists wrote that he was a spy for the K.G.B. or Mossad or Czech intelligence—or all three.
“My daughter Ghislaine has no money, no trusts, no funds anywhere.” her mother Betty told Vanity Fair. “Neither of [my children] had any money. Their father never gave them any money.”
Their assets were frozen. His son Kevin’s house was put up for sale, as were the Lady Ghislaine and the Gulfstream IV Jet. Their passports were seized.
A friend told The Times of London, “[Ghislaine] had always been the life and soul of the party wherever she wanted to go in the world and never had to worry about money.” Now she was the broken child of a monster, his name forever synonymous to scandal. “She was catatonic,” the friend said.
Forced to vacate her huge company-provided residence, she moved into a small apartment. When a friend came to visit, Ghislaine told her, “They took everything—everything—even the cutlery.”
Little did she know how many more times things in her life would shift from silver spoons to hard times. A woman brought up in luxury, she had everything taken from her, before she came to the United States to begin again.
“He wasn’t a crook,” Ghislaine told Vanity Press. “A thief to me is somebody who steals money. (…) Did he put it in his own pocket? Did he run off with the money? No. And that’s my definition of a crook.”
“I’m surviving—just,” she said. “But I can’t just die quietly in a comer. I have to believe that something good will come out of this mess. It’s sad for my mother. It’s sad to have lost my dad. It’s sad for my brothers. But I would say we’ll be back. Watch this space.”
Ghislaine Maxwell was also being hunted by the tabloids. The Maxwell name was so detested in London that she is said to have had to walk around in a blond wig so people wouldn’t recognize her.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s reinvention didn’t take long. Maxwell moved to the United States just after her father’s death. Her photograph boarding a Concorde to cross the Atlantic caused outrage – her father had just defrauded pensioners out of 750 Million Sterling Pounds.
According to the Mail on Sunday: “Unnoticed by almost everybody, traveling with her was a greying, plumpish, middle-aged American businessman who managed to avoid the photographers. It is to this man that 30-year-old Ghislaine has turned to ease the heartache of her father’s shame.”
“His name is Jeffrey Epstein.”
“Whose house is this, Ghislaine?” a friend asked her in the early 1990’s. “Who lives here?”
My friend,” Maxwell replied.
“Well, is he banging you?” the friend demanded. “What’s the scoop here?”
A trust fund is said to have provided her with an income of $145,000 a year. A far cry from her previous seemingly unending wealth. She “never, ever had any cash. Lots of credit, of course, but no cash”, one friend recalled to the press.
And yet, she lived the high life. She was known in New York as the “female Gatsby” for her lavish entertaining. Had a “reputation for being charming and funny, and a glittering lifestyle straight out of the pages of a society magazine”.
She was now “far from the ever watchful eye of the British press,” Hello! magazine wrote in 1997.
“She is proud of the fact that her new life is all down to her own hard work and has her elegant apartment to show for it,” the magazine mistakenly added. One day, she would “get married and have kids. But it has never been a focus: My focus is my business.”
Ghislaine’s presence added more fuel to the question: “How did Jeffrey Epstein amass his fortune?” For one of the most propagated theories is that Maxwell’s father Robert bankrolled him with funds hidden from the UK authorities.
Jeffrey Epstein built a 21,000-square-foot mansion on a massive ranch in New Mexico, which – he boasted – made his New York townhouse “look like a shack”. He named it the Zorro Ranch. He also acquired a 72-acre island in the Virgin Islands and an 8,600-square-foot home in Paris, with a specially built massage room.
She had found a path back to the lifestyle she’d lost when her father died. “She was used to living very well,” says a friend who knew her then. “She didn’t want to go back to where she was.” All she had to do to keep it was to give ‘the monster’ what he wanted.
Maxwell was expected to drop everything to serve Epstein.
She had to keep everyone in line, because one misstep would unleash the wrath of Epstein, one of the few people who could make Maxwell cry. “He would be screaming over the phone,” recalled an Epstein victim, “and she would burst into tears.”
The New York townhouse became a social nexus; guests could have included members of the Kennedy and Rockefeller clans, “along with the requisite sprinkling of countesses and billionaires,” according to The Times of London.
She was “a modern-day geisha” in a “domain filled with the richest people in the planet. “It’s a world frequented by young half-naked girls in bikinis, billionaires and lavish lifestyles, but it borders on the grotesque. You are never really sure what is going on behind closed doors.”
Royalty was specially prized, which is why her friendship with Prince Andrew became so treasured. In 2000, Maxwell and Epstein attended a Prince Andrew’s party at the Queen’s Sandringham House estate in Norfolk, England. It has been reported that the event was in honor of Maxwell’s 39th birthday.
And yet, Ghislaine began trying to distance herself from Epstein long before he went to jail. In the early 2000s, she hooked up in California with a man much richer than Epstein: Ted Waitt.
Waitt lived in a seven-bedroom, 14-bath mansion in La Jolla, sailed the world aboard a 240-foot mega-yacht, the Plan B. It was equipped with a helipad, Jacuzzi, elevator, gym, and HAD AN ONBOARD SUBMARINE, which Maxwell soon was licensed to pilot.
After Epstein went to prison in Florida for a short period, Maxwell saw the silver spoons turned into hard times again.
Acquaintances that crossed her path reported how she was almost unrecognizable. She was not stylish and attention grabbing anymore, seemed determined to go unnoticed. Her face had no makeup. There was a hint of gray in her black hair, she put on some weight.
“I was so shocked by her look,” a friend recalled to the British press. “I didn’t recognize her.”
She even gave up her once proud name, sometimes introducing herself to new acquaintances only as “G.”
“Where are you living, Ghislaine?” the friend asked. “I lost touch with you.” Maxwell suddenly went blank. “Oh,” she replied, “a little bit everywhere.”
December 2014: Virginia Roberts Giuffre filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida describing Maxwell as Epstein’s “primary coconspirator and participant in his sexual abuse and sex trafficking scheme.”
Maxwell made a huge mistake, issuing an “urgent” statement to the media dismissing the claims as “obvious lies.” That allowed Giuffre, to sue Maxwell for defamation in federal court in New York, a lawsuit “widely viewed as a vessel for Epstein’s victims to expose the scope of Epstein’s crimes,” according to the Miami Herald.
Maxwell affirmed her innocence with fury, at one point of her testimony banging her fists on the table. She also, according to charges filed by the DOJ SDNY, committed two counts of perjury.
2019: when the SDNY reopened the criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine was far away, living the high life.
She met with her friend Prince Andrew in Buckingham Palace, and participated in “Cash & Rocket”, an annual charity road rally. Between races of the rally, she joined the super rich in attending a Masquerade Ball in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as a White dinner at La Reserve in Geneva and the Red party at the Yacht Club de Monaco.
Those were to be her last reported events. Cash & Rocket scrub Maxwell’s photo from its website once Epstein was arrested and the scandal assaulted the headlines again.
On July 6, 2019, Epstein was arrested by federal agents at Teterboro Airport, arriving from Paris. The FBI raided his mansion, and charged him with sex trafficking of minors.
“Epstein’s pimp girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, a very well-connected Brit socialite cannot just walk free,” actress Ellen Barking tweeted the day after Epstein’s arrest. “This woman is his pimp. She pilots planes [sic] to and from the island. I know because she told me.”
Maxwell again went into hiding, unreachable during legal proceedings. It surfaced in December 2019 that Maxwell was among the people under FBI investigation for facilitating Epstein’s crimes.
She was faced with a tabloid frenzy even bigger than the one that accompanied the death of her father. She again uprooted herself and tried to start over in Manchester-by-the-Sea, a quiet village 30 miles north of Boston, she lived for a time in the $3 million, five-bedroom colonial home of Scott Borgerson, CEO of CargoMetrics, a hedge fund investment company involved in maritime data analytics.
Since Epstein was found dead in jail, last August, she is reported to have moved 36 times, out of fear for her safety. Credible Death threats arrived by social media, email, phone, text, and postal service. It began in earnest with Epstein’s arrest, multiplied with his death, and accelerated in the months that followed. They soon became a routine part of her life.
She hired a professional security firm, with operatives that are veterans of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
This photoshopped photo of Maxwell surfaced last year to mislead the public into thinking she was in Los Angeles. Frank Report was the first to report the photo a fake, a story that went viral.
“Where in the world was Ghislaine Maxwell? Everyone, it seemed, had a theory, each wilder than the last. She was said to be hiding deep beneath the sea in a submarine, which she was licensed to pilot. Or she was lying low in Israel, under the protection of the Mossad, the powerful intelligence agency with whom her late father supposedly tangled. Or she was in the FBI witness protection program, or ensconced in luxury in a villa in the South of France, or sunning herself naked on the coast of Spain, or holed up in a high-security doomsday bunker belonging to rich and powerful friends whose lives might implode should Maxwell ever reveal what she knows—all the dirty secrets of the dirty world that she and Epstein shared.”
(Vanity Fair – Jul 3, 2020)
Maxwell remained at large, beyond the reach of attorneys, tabloid reporters, and a 10,000-pound reward from The Sun in London.
“It’s a little bit like Elvis—you get lots of reports but they’re hard to verify,” a victim attorney said in May.
She was periodically said to have been spotted around the world, usually in places where she was not. Reporters scoured the globe. Some said she was in Russia trying to get a Oligarch to protect her. Others pointed to Israel or Brazil, China, Singapore, the Middle East, England.
She was “both everywhere and nowhere,” lamented UK’s The Guardian.
On August 2019, she was apparently photographed eating a burger and fries in the Cahuenga Boulevard, in the San Fernando Valley. She held The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives. Given Ghislaine and her father Robert’s alleged ties to Intelligence Services, this choice does not seem accidental.
Papers were running out of incredible stories to account for her disappearance. A bizarre new theory emerged she could be hiding in a submarine which – as we saw – was not downright impossible, since she DID have a license to pilot underground vehicles.
On July 2nd 2020, Maxwell was arrested by the FBI and NYPD in the small New England town of Bradford, New Hampshire. It is situated at driving distance of the NYSD. They finally found her in a luxurious four-bedroom, 4,365-square-foot home on a wooded lot, called Tuckedaway.
Ghislaine Maxwell was charged with six federal crimes: luring and enticement of minors, sex trafficking of children and perjury.
The crimes took place between 1994 and 1997, the years of her “intimate relationship with Epstein,” when she “assisted, facilitated, and contributed to Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of minor girls.”
One of the three unnamed victims was “as young as 14 years old when they were groomed and abused by Maxwell and Epstein, both of whom knew that certain victims were in fact under the age of 18.”
FBI assistant director William F. Sweeney Jr. described Maxwell as “one of the villains of this investigation,” who had “slithered away to a gorgeous property” in New Hampshire, where she was “continuing to live a life of privilege while her victims live with the trauma inflicted upon them years ago.”
“I am optimistic about my future,” she said in 1997, “and believe things will continue to improve for me as time passes.”
Now, according to sources close to her, “I don’t think [Ghislaine] sees there is a future,” came the reply.
If found guilty of all charges, Maxwell could face a prison sentence of 35 years. She denies the accusations, and has pleaded not guilty to all six charges.
She will await trial locked up in the Metropolitan Detention Center, in Brooklyn. A dreadful prison that is as removed from her previous “silver spoon” upbringing as it’s possible in the US. Hard times.
She used to be a larger than life character, who once hosted a dinner for NY socialites on ‘the fine art of giving a blow job’. But then, she really blew it.
A report from a source familiar with the Metropolitan Detention Center gives a glum picture of Ghislaine Maxwell’s present conditions.
She is in the women’s section and believed to be confined to a solitary cell. Because of the past history of the MDC, it is not impossible to suspect that Ghislaine could be having sexual relations with one or more corrections officers, either male or female. Her available wealth would permit her to buy some privileges directly from the corrections officers who could smuggle in items for her.
MDC has a history of guards, male and female, enjoying sex with prisoners and smuggling in everything from alcohol to cell phones to drugs. While she is not enjoying what anyone would call a privileged life, and is most likely [because of Covid protocols] confined to her cell, dank and cold [in summer] perhaps as much as 23-24 hours per day and possibly getting only one hot meal per day, our source says, with her wealth and talent to charm, if there is any privilege, any opportunity, any luxury to enjoy at MDC, she is enjoying it.
Of course, she is probably under near-constant surveillance, for no guard wants to go to prison for letting her get murdered or commit suicide – as did her former lover Epstein. It is not known how frequently she is meeting with lawyers in special rooms set aside for the purpose. But an MDC source tells Frank Report that prison officials are known to eavesdrop on those conversations with lawyers and defendants and do so on high profile cases. Whether they report to the prosecution what they learn is unknown.
In the end, Maxwell has a hard road to hoe and will remain in the brutal and unsanitary MDC until she stands trial or makes a plea deal or dies. The possibility of additional charges other than those currently charged against her – for hebephilia crimes in the last century – remain a possibility.
The late Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted hebephile, a person who has urges for post pubescent but under the age of consent children. Is Ghislaine one also? And are there others, famous and prominent men of power who have indulged as Jeffrey and allegedly Ghislaine have done?
The ace in the hole for her, obviously, is, if she has info on other prominent hebephiles that the DOJ for its own partisan or PR reasons might like to selectively prosecute, she can trade that info for a lenient sentence and hopefully not be murdered for doing so.
Her former lover, Jeffrey Epstein, might have committed suicide, as the Mainstream Media and the US Govt. urges you to believe, but there are some who find the coincidences, cameras being off, bones broken indicating he was strangled, guards happening to fall asleep as they were assigned to watch the most famous prisoner in the world, such that that it just might cause reasonable people to doubt the official narrative a little more than the corporate media and prison officials would wants us to doubt.
The same fate might befall Ghislaine and we may never know just what she did. Whether her crimes were confined to herself and Epstein or whether there was a vast network of hebephiles joining in – or – in fairness to her – she is innocent as she claims, something that a trial, if she makes it to trial, might help us determine.


stretcher during the funeral service in Jerusalem’s main convention hall on Nov. 10, 1991. The body is laying on a stretcher, draped in a white Jewish prayer shawl with black stripes as is it tradition of Jewish burials in Israel. (AP Photo/Natik Harnik) Ghislaine is fourth from the left.


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Pre AEW Dynamite Series Premier Discussion - October 2nd, 2019

Welcome to the INAUGURAL AEW Dynamite pre show post!
Let’s take a look at what’s in store for the series premiere! Source: Allelitewrestling.com
Cody vs. Sammy Guevara
Following his victory over AEW's Resident Chairman Shawn Spears at “All Out”, it was announced that Cody would step into the ring with AEW World Champion Chris Jericho at the November 9th PPV event “Full Gear” to challenge for that title. Between the war with his brother Dustin at “Double or Nothing”, the tag team battle against The Young Bucks, the draw with Darby Allin, and that victory over Spears, Cody has proven himself deserving of that title opportunity. But with that being said, with that title chance looming, and based on the most recent episode of “Road To...” (Watch Here) Cody's focus is clearly all Jericho, and it appears this EVP is overlooking Sammy Guevara.
As for Sammy, the man who fans all saw watching the Cody/Spears match on the “All Out” monitors, he knows that this is the single most important match of his career. Not only is it the FIRST match fans will see when they tune into “Dynamite”, but it is against one of the men who is at the heart of AEW. Say what you will about his attitude, about how he carries himself in the ring, Guevara (as chronicled in Episode 2 of “Road To AEW on TNT”(Watch Here) has the heart, drive, and will to step up to that next level. His eyes are intently focused on one man, and one man only, as Sammy know what a victory over Cody could mean. It certainly throws a monkey wrench into that “Full Gear” championship bout, it certainly propels Sammy to the top of the food chain, and it certainly cements him as a player in any title discussion going forward, maybe even that AEW World Title defense set for October 16th in Philly....
MJF vs. Brandon Cutler
The mouth of AEW versus the soul of AEW; it is safe to say both men represent those aspects of All Elite Wrestling. On one side is MJF: the man who virtually everyone but Cody despises and who, in turn, despises almost everyone but Cody. On the other is Brandon Cutler who, through his demonstration of heart and work ethic and determination, more than earned his contracts with AEW. MJF would claim Cutler exists as a pity hire for Matt & Nick Jackson, while Brandon could lay the same distinction down about MJF and his relationship with Cody. Suffice to say, the slander from MJF directed at Cutler has been relentless since day one, poking and prodding at his family life, at Brandon being just another guy, even at D&D. Now Cutler has his chance, in his first AEW singles bout, to shut that mouth of MJF's for three glorious seconds (because you know that is about as long as it could possibly stay shut without wires).
PAC vs. Hangman Page
It has been looming since the press conference before “Double or Nothing”, a collision between PAC and Adam Page, but it evaporated before our very eyes save for a confrontation in the UK. That interaction resulted in an injury to Page that nearly kept him from competing at “DoN”, the site of the Casino Battle Royale victory that propelled Adam into the AEW World Title match at “All Out”. And although that eventual title bout would not end in Page's favor, courtesy of a flash knockout from The Judas Effect of Chris Jericho, it showed the world what Page himself already knew: that he can go with the absolute best in the world. Following the match, during the post-show presser, PAC confronted Page about their unfinished business and his desire for revenge. That opportunity is now at hand, and finally we will get to see their meeting. PAC is riding high after conquering Kenny Omega at “AO”, while Page is fighting from underneath after his loss to Jericho. What will happen October 2nd between these warriors?
AEW Women's Title Match: Riho vs. Nyla Rose
From one Casino Battle Royale winner to another; Nyla Rose earned the right to compete in this bout to crown the FIRST AEW Women's Champion after conquering the Women's Casino Battle Royale at “All Out”. Later that same night, Riho earned her opportunity after defeating Hikaru Shida in a tremendous battle between two premiere Joshi competitors. Now, in the nation's capitol, these two women will fight to make history and become the first AEW Women's Champion. It is a clear battle of size versus speed, of strength versus technique, and between two people of vastly different paths to this place. The experience edge falls to Riho who has been doing this since she was 9 years old, the power advantage obviously falls on the side of Nyla, but it must also be acknowledged that at “Fyter Fest”, Riho scored the victory in a Three Way Match, that also featured Yuka Sazaki, by pinning Rose herself. Will that desire to even the score prove the deciding factor in tipping the scales to Nyla Rose's favor?
Jon Moxley Will Appear
Silent since announcing he had to pull out of “All Out” and the scheduled bout with Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley will appear on this premiere episode of “Dynamite”, just one week before he is set to return to action against Shawn Spears in Boston. What will he do? What will he say? It's likely Moxley himself does not even know...
The Elite (The Young Bucks & Kenny Omega) vs. Chris Jericho & 2 Mystery Partners (edit: Santana and Ortiz have been revealed as Jericho's partners - emnii)
And in your main event of the evening, The Elite reunite to battle Chris Jericho and two partners who, as of this writing, remain a mystery. There is heavy speculation on just who will be the one sharing a corner with the World Champion. Will it be Private Party ahead of their AEW World Tag Team Tournament clash with The Young Bucks? Could it be Santana and Ortiz after their actions at “All Out” following the Escalera de la Muerte match? What about Pentagon and Fenix since they have demonstrated their ability to beat The Elite in the past? Maybe even Jack Evans and Angelico after finding themselves on the outs of the Tag Title Tournament thanks to fan voting. It could also very well be two men from the outside, brought into AEW by Chris Jericho for this contest. With a career spanning as long as his, with all the varied roads he has traveled, one would think there is a wealth of talent the World Champion could find to stand by his side, and what better way to make that first impact than by knocking down The Elite on the TNT debut of AEW.
Then there is the Omega factor; as fans have seen on the “Road to AEW on TNT” episodes, Kenny Omega has not exactly been...all there. He has been erratic to say the least, and downright cruel at times when running off at the mouth. How will this play a factor in the single most important night of All Elite Wrestling's history? The first press conference was big, the first PPV event was huge, but this is the first TV, the first wrestling on TNT since 2001, and The Young Bucks are heading into it with a partner who does not seem to have it all together. For their sake, hopefully the three members of The Elite can find that common ground by the time the bell rings to herald the first main event of “AEW: Dynamite”.
Catch Up on Youtube
Being The Elite Episode 173 “The Cleaner”
Road to AEW on TNT Episode 04
Countdown to All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite (hosted on TNT)
How to Watch
US: TNT, 8pm Eastern
Canada: TSN, 8pm Eastern
ROW: Streaming on Fite, Midnight UTC
Question of the week
WWE refers to their fans as the WWE universe. Lucha Underground calls their fans the believers. How will AEW name the fans at large?
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History of Clifton Hill Part 5 (Final): What Could Have Been, and What Can Still Be

Thank you to everyone who has followed this series or voted for it's creation. I'm glad you've enjoyed it and I'm always happy to spread the important history of the amusement industry, especially pertaining to the place that inspired me to go into the industry. For parts 1-4 scroll back in this sub or click my profile.
In 1989, Welland Securities, who owned the entire south-west side of the Hill, would develop the final portion of unused land on Clifton Hill. They would become HOCO (Harry Oakes Company) and gain ownership of almost all the attractions on land they leased out. This included Movieland, The Space Spiral Tower and the Cliffside Motel. The only attractions that would continue being leased were Ripley's and Circus World, meaning HOCO not only owned all the land on the South-West side of the hill, they now ran everything between Circus World and Ripley's, as well as the Fudge Factory (in its original spot) and an ice cream stand immediately down the hill from Circus World. They planned to keep everything that was on the hill but build on it.
Movieland was remodeled and the outside was given a more noticeable Egyptian theme to match the lobby. This meant large lion statues and Costello's talking pharaoh. The lobby was remodeled as well. Rather than a cameraman and a director filming Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra, they would now be filming Costello's Indiana Jones figure, who lowered up and down on a rope above a fogging pit with a cobra rising out of it. Many of the early talkie-era stars in the hall immediately after the entrance (along with Elizabeth Taylor) were moved to 2 large display cases in the middle of the attraction with multiple figures, instead of each one having their own scene. In their original spot just inside the entrance an intentionally scary scene was created to match the popular Indiana Jones series. Many of the figures Costello had added since he became the museum's artist were slightly frightening, like a lunging alligator or a startling Joker scene with a machine gun sound effect. The museum had been expanded at the end, and a large horror section had been added, with many figures like the mummy being from the same mold as the House of Frankenstein/Castle Dracula mummys. Unlike when it would move to it's current location in 2005, the old location's chicken exit was placed before the horror section rather than the haunted house portion. In fact, there was no haunted house section, many of the figures that would end up in the haunted house section of the new location were simply scattered throughout the museum. Many of the figures in the horror section of the original museum were actually less scary and less animated than the Jurassic park scene or the alligator encountered earlier in the museum. To prevent unsuspecting parents who had no clue what kind of attraction this was dragging their children in and expecting static figures of washed-up movie stars, getting the living daylights scared out of them, then end ending up filing complaints with HOCO's customer service department, an intentionally scary scene was put at the beginning. This let people know what they were walking in to, an experience rather than a museum. Costello designed figures behind plexiglass such as a man upside down in a cocoon thrashing around, a skull that popped up from the floorboards in a scene full of snakes, a man on a bed of spikes that fell towards you, and a scene with spiders on fishing line "jumping" all over a rotting corpse.
The Cliffside Motel was amalgamated into a wing of the Quality Inn, and the driveway into it off the hill was removed as it was no longer necessary because it could be accessed from the Quality Inn parking lot. In the driveway's place was now a large empty space between Circus World and Movieland, with the Space Spiral Tower (with a relatively small footprint) stuck in the middle. HOCO called upon attraction design and layout firm White Hutchison Leisure Learning Group (WHLLG) to design an attraction around the Space Spiral that would use the final undeveloped land on Clifton Hill. And so WHLLG designed Dazzleland Family Fun Centre. Dazzleland was a courtyard of buildings arranged in roughly the same layout as the Great Canadian Midway (for reasons we'll get to later) that sits on the land now. The buildings around the outside of the courtyard were long and narrow, picture a courtyard of carnival game trailers but permanent, appealing buildings. These buildings included a Skee-ball building, a sports game building (basketball games, football toss etc.), a racing game building, a pinball building, a funnel cake shop, and the prize counter. In the back corner, roughly where the XD Theatre now is in the midway, was a larger building: an arcade housing video games and more pinball machines. In the middle of the courtyard was a small carousel, and a small building housing games that dispensed their own prizes (claw machines, prize egg games, etc.) and coin-op kiddie rides.
The Space Spiral was incorporated into Dazzleland, still being accessible directly off the hill. As mentioned in part 3, the tower was exactly where the Fudge Factory now is, as the circular store was once the loading area for the tower. At this time the snack bars beside the tower right on the hill were constructed: a pretzel/hotdog stand and an ice cream stand, both of which are still there. The Wendy's was built on top of Circus World, replacing the mini golf that had formerly been on the attraction's roof. Across the entrance to Dazzleland's courtyard from Wendy's was a Domino's Pizza, roughly where the photo booth just to your right is when entering the Great Canadian Midway now. Between the Space Spiral and the Dominos was a fortune teller machine built right into the wall: "Ask the Brain". The brain still lives on inside Movieland, except now he wants a loonie instead of a quarter. Just up the hill from the Space Spiral, on top of the hot dog and ice cream stand, a small sports bar was built. Very little is known about this sports bar, but obvious remnants of it still exists. The area of Boston Pizza closest to the hill (the back corner near the kitchen, the bar area, and the raised dining area) was the originally the sports bar. It featured a small coin-op bowling lane, arcade games, and food. The stairs in the Midway up to Boston Pizza beside Ghostblasters is the original stairs up from Dazzleland to the sports bar. Additionally, the Boston Pizza entrance closer to the hill (not the one with the big bowling pin, other one) was the main entrance to the sports bar. Little is known about the bar, including it's name. It may not have had one, simply being part of the Dazzleland complex. Many of the areas in Dazzleland didn't have a name, simply having signs heralding "Arcade", "Sports Games", "Skeeball" rather than naming the areas like the "Game Factory", "Sports Zone" or "Strike! Rock 'n Bowl" like in the Midway. For this reason, the bar may have been nameless, simply being part of the Dazzleland complex, but it's unlikely a dining establishment geared at adult nightlife wouldn't have a name.
Because the mini golf on Circus World's roof had been operated by the Cliffside Motel operators, HOCO acquired all the assets from it when they stopped leasing the land out. When the aforementioned Wendy's was built, the mini golf was moved just up the hill from the sports bar. It's entrance was right on the hill, but the course wrapped around the sports bar and ran back behind Dazzleland, between the back of Dazzleland and the parking lot of the Quality Inn. It would now be dinosaur themed and heavily landscaped. WHLLG designed the course and HOCO contracted Costello to build all the fiberglass dinosaurs. It's unknown what it's original name was, but in the early 90s, with the smash hit of Jurassic Park, it was renamed Dinosaur Park and given a similar logo. Up until the 2018 remodel, Boston Pizza had a patio. This patio was the exact location of the entrance to the mini golf, and the reason the restaurant's building curved in such a bizarre way surrounding the patio was originally to accommodate the course. Underneath the sports bar and mini golf and was an underground building accessible from a back corner of Dazzleland's courtyard. This area housed all of Dazzleland's miscellaneous ticket redemption games and 2 shooting galleries. The low-ceiling area of the Midway called the "Game Factory" is this original building. The Bonanaza Company shooting gallery is still there albeit heavily remodeled, but Blasteroids, an early project by arcade game company Lazer-Tron, was removed in 2016. Interestingly, the chase lights along the back wall of the Game Factory are Dazzleland holdovers. Between the shooting gallery and where what's left of the racing games now are is a bank of maintenance doors. If you get lucky and see them open, you'll see a stairs that was originally an entrance to Dazzleland from further up the street, beside Dinosaur Park. This now lets out somewhere in Boston Pizza's arcade (although I haven't been able to figure out where) and is used by staff to get from "a" to "b" faster.
Dazzleland has been the hardest to dig up information on in my research on Clifton Hill. Although I now know what was in each of the buildings around the outside of this "courtyard", I haven't been able to find which one was where. The only things I've confirmed is where the video game building was, what was in the building in the middle, and confirmed that the Game Factory was originally part of Dazzleland. The rest is beyond me and my memories of it have long faded. If anyone worked here or visited it frequently and has any answers, they would be greatly appreciated. Additionally there was a small pool near the front with a Costello dragon figure in it that spit water out it's mouth. I've heard conflicting reports that this was just a fountain, and others saying it was a small bumper boat or RC boat attraction, but my guess is it was just a fountain as it seems like a pretty small pool. The same year, fiberglass dragon waterslides were added to the Quality Inn pool. Although bearing striking resemblance to Costello's dinosaurs and Dazzleland dragon, at least one more of each of the dragon slides exist, all the way down in Texas. It was originally thought this Texas waterpark bought them off HOCO when Quality Inn closed, but one of the Quality Inn dragons appeared on an episode of shipping wars going to Kansas and the other was recently found abandoned on a private residential property in Niagara, proving they are in fact not the ones at the Texas waterpark. This is evidence they may have been mass produced.
By the time Dazzleland opened in 1989, it was the 8th arcade on the hill (after Circus World, Q-Balls Billiards Pub in Quality Inn, the arcade in Ripley's, the arcade in the Foxhead, the arcade in Castle Dracula, Funland in the basement of the House of Frankenstein, and an arcade that had recently opened in the Pilgrim Motel in their gift shop.) These were just the large-scale, dedicated arcades right on the hill. Many others could be found nearby in Maple Leaf Village, the Skylon, the Seagram, Pyramid Place and the Imperial Hotel as well as many mini golf courses and family fun centres along Lundy's Ln. and the QEW. Also, virtually every gift shop on Clifton Hill and Victoria Ave. had a game or 2.
The mix of arcades, haunted houses, fast food, nightlife and stores selling t-shirts and posters had started a well-known rock culture in Niagara Falls among Southern Ontario youth. The epicenter of this was "Rock World", a rock-themed gift shop that had opened in 1983 on Centre St. (the street Clifton Hill becomes just above Victoria Ave.) They would later add a second story and build Rock Legends Wax Museum above it, with all the figures sculpted by the store's owner Pasquale Rammuno. In 1996, Maple Leaf Village was replaced by Casino Niagara, and many of the attractions found new homes on Victoria Ave., including Screamers and Nightmares. The Elvis Museum, Antique Auto Museum, 50s diner nightclub, and arcade all moved to Pyramid Place adjacent to the IMAX pyramid. Screamers prospered on Victoria Ave., and 2 "sequel attractions" were built in the early 2000s: Creatures of the Night on Victoria Ave. and Horror Manothe Zombie Zoo Nightclub on Centre St. Another attraction, Alien Encounter, would open at the corner of Victoria Ave. and Clifton Hill beside the Criminals Hall of Fame. This slightly thematically darker "north of the hill" area with the Screamers chain, the Criminals Hall of Fame, Rock Legends, Nightmares and Alien Encounter became a "main strip" all in it's own.
As mentioned before, since the cabin courts were all town down in the early 50s, nothing had been torn down on Clifton Hill. The only exception was the Houdini Hall of Fame that burnt to ash in 1996. Some of Houdini's Last Words were claiming that anything revealing his secrets would perish in flame, and even though the fire completely leveled the museum, the plywood and fiberglass paneled House of Frankenstein only separated from it by a 2-foot wide alley was completely untouched, leading a lot of Houdini's fans to believe he was conducting some kind of post-mortem practical joke. The metal objects like handcuffs and the water tank could be saved, and were bought by David Copperfield. Ripley's Moving Theatre was built in it's place. Over the 30 years from Tussaud's opening in 1959 to Dazzleland in 1989, Clifton Hill had expanded and filled up the land. However that didn't mean it was time to tear things down. Things were simply moved around or remodeled to keep them fresh, not out of an unwillingness to change, but because these things had become ingrained in the landscape. Examples of this were Tussaud's moving to its current home in the old building of a restaurant that had since moved on Victoria Ave., rather than the attraction shutting down, or the Adventure Dome Theatre oepneing in part of the Honeymoon City's gift shop. In Tussaud's old place was built the MGM walkthrough/store, Pink Panther ride and 4D Ride in 2002. The beer garden beside it was replaced with the WWE building and the Piledriver ride, but the beer area was moved to between the 2 attractions. In 2004 the Foxhead's arcade was expanded and re-themed into the Marvel Superheros Adventure City.
Another great example of re-freshing an existing attraction was Dazzleland. A simple realization was made, more games = more money and higher guest enjoyment. The outdoor courtyard style with it's room for walkways between the buildings was re-designed, and HOCO again called upon WHLLG. WHLLG designed not only a remodel of Dazzleland, but an incredible 5-step plan that would have made Clifton Hill financially on par with a major theme park. Steps 1-3 came to fruition. Step 1 was remodeling Dazzleland into the Great Canadian Midway in 2002. The level, concrete foundation Dazzleland was built on was kept as the foundation of the Midway, hence why it has the same layout. The former video game building at the back became the FX Ride Theatre (now XD Theatre/Wild West Coaster) in the Midway. The funnel cake shop was kept where it was in Dazzleland except now it was in the Midway, between the FX Ride and the Prize Counter. The area housing Dazzleland's ticket redemption games became the Game Factory. The middle building housing the claw games and kiddie rides was demolished, as it was no longer needed because the Midway was fully indoors and there was now a massive space to put games. The sports bar was expanded and became Boston Pizza, so Dinosaur Park was moved to in front of the Comfort Inn. Under the expanded Boston Pizza, Sally Corp. was hired to build the interactive Ghostblasters dark ride. All of Dazzleland's old games made the transition into the Midway, however very few are still around.
With the Midway making serious buck, HOCO went ahead with phase 2 of WHLLG's plan. Movieland was moved to Circus World's former location in 2005, and Circus World's owners moved the attraction to what was then the popular Victoria Ave. area. In Movieland's old home, Cosmic Golf, a blacklight golf was temporarily set up. 2 years later in 2007, the golf moved to it's permanent home in the basement becoming Galaxy Golf and the gift shop that had been formerly in the basement was moved upstairs. Movieland retained all the figures and sets they had at the time of the move, moving them all into the new space. All the scary elements were put in the new "House of Horrors", a small optional haunted house at the end of the attraction.
Phase 3 involved beginning to demolish the only thing that WHLLG's 5 phase plan would have torn down: Quality Inn. In it's place an amusement park would have been built, anchored by Canada's largest ferris wheel. The wheel would be phase 3 and the amusement park phase 4. Though both WHLLG and HOCO recognized the historical value of the hotel, it had reasons to go. The hotel may have been full of your usual hazardous mid-century building materials (however Comfort Inn built by the same firm the same year was found to have no hazardous materials when it was torn down in 2015, so who knows) but the main issue was elevators and the amount of space it took up. Comfort Inn only had 2 wings, one on each side of the lobby, and only 2 elevators would have needed to be installed. This wasn't legally necessary, as no law states that buildings of age absolutely have to be 100% accessible, it was more something HOCO wanted to do. Quality Inn had multiple wings that weren't accessible from one another, so an elevator would need to be installed in each wing. In addition to the elevator issue, Comfort Inn was chosen as the hotel to keep because the building was integrated with Kelsey's, Rumors Nightclub, Ripley's, and Dinosaur Park, all of which wouldn't have been touched in WHLLG's 5 phase plan. Finally, Comfort Inn's land wasn't big enough for an amusement park whereas Quality Inn's was. 2 things would justify the demolition of Quality Inn. One, it's sister hotel, Comfort Inn, would have been kept. The other reason justifying the demolition would be phase 5: a skyscraper hotel and indoooutdoor waterpark in the field between Clifton Hill and the Skylon Tower. The dragon figures from Quality Inn's pool were kept in HOCO's storage for a time for this waterpark. The final vision can be seen here.
Phase 3 would go ahead in 2006, with the lobby, Golden Griddle and Q-Balls Billiard pub of Quality Inn being torn down and the Skywheel built in it's place. For the last year Quality Inn was open, you would need to register at Comfort Inn's lobby. The same year, the Space Spiral was torn down, as 2 observation attractions wouldn't be needed on the hill. However, a new spiral tower would have been constructed during phase 4 in the theme park. The reason the tower would be demolished rather than moved was because a tower manufactured by the same company in Wildwood, NJ, had begun to sway a few years earlier, resulting in it needing to be removed entirely for safety reasons. Phase 4 was set to go ahead in 2010, so in 2009 the remainder of Quality Inn was demolished. It seemed as though everything would fall into place, and with the exception of Quality Inn making it's sacrifice, everything on Clifton Hill that had been there for 20-60 years would be there forever, just greatly expanded on.
Unfortunately, this came at a turning point for Clifton Hill, when the recession was in full swing and tourism had declined since 9/11. Changing technology and interests, but no real nostalgia trend yet, created a perfect storm, and the idea was scrapped. Especially now that there would be no amusement park, a lot of area attractions closed. HOCO now needed to find a new design company to completely re-design the project. The problem was, Quality Inn was already torn down to make way for the amusement park. HOCO reluctantly found a new design company who had no projects under their belt yet, IDS. HOCO was hopeful the Canadian company could help give them a similar vision to their previous 5 stage plan, that would help them re-use many of the already implemented stages and despite scrapping the amusement park, would simply scale down and redesign the hotel. This was done in hopes that the city would be much more likely to approve just another high rise hotel than an amusement park as well. IDS' new plan was much different than what HOCO was looking for. It featured tearing down Ripley's, Comfort Inn, Kelsey's, and Rumours Nightclub and building a Titanic Museum shaped like the boat. It also featured building a large mall within the hotel rather than a waterpark and relocating and expanding Dinosaur Park into Dinosaur Adventure Golf on Quality Inn's old land. While HOCO thankfully chose not to go ahead with the mall and Titanic Museum, they would build Dinosaur Adventure Golf and work with IDS to make a more feasible plan that better suited Clifton Hill.
The new plan featured Dinosaur Adventure Golf and Strike! Rock 'n Bowl as phase 1. It also included removing a lot of the thematic brand identity elements WHLLG had implemented to coincide with their final amusement park vision and replacing Galaxy Golf with Wizard's Golf as phase 2. Phase 3 would feature tearing down Comfort Inn (that never got it's elevators due to it no longer being planned to be kept), building Niagara Speedway in it's place, and removing Rumors Nightclub to accommodate the new Kelsey's bathrooms and Zombie Attack. Phase 4 would feature remodelling Wendy's, Boston Pizza and Kelsey's. Phase 5 would feature a mall (no hotel) in the field between Dinosaur Adventure Golf and the Skylon, but this final phase will likely never come to fruition.
Multiple attractions have closed since the late 2000's, such as the entire Screamers chain, Circus World, The Criminals Hall of Fame, Funland Arcade and Alien Encounter. The Hilltop Motel became the current home of the Upside Down House, and the Pilgrim Motel became Captain Jack's. Ironically, the only part of the building that's not part of the entertainment centre is a Mini Mart at the back that was the original arcade in the Pilgrim. Virtually everything in the Falls. Ave. complex other than Rainforest Cafe and the 4D theatre is gone. Marvel Superheroes Adventure City lost its license after Disney bought Marvel, and it simply became Adventure City. The Hulk Mini Golf became jungle themed, Spider-Man references were (poorly) removed from the dark ride, and X-men referenced were (also poorly) removed from the bumper cars. References to Marvel can still be found in the arcade, such as Spider-Man's face on a tree that was only covered up a few years ago. The WWE Store, after being abandoned since 2012, was turned into the Niagara Brewery Beer Store in 2016, fitting considering the land's history as a beer garden. Planet Hollywood on Falls Ave. closed around 2014, and is still abandoned. The MGM walkthrough was abandoned for over 10 years before becoming a barbecue restaurant in 2019.
The changes in the Falls Ave. complex are an example of good change, replacing abandoned attractions with ones that if anything are closer to what used to be there, such as Adventure City becoming an unthemed arcade again or the Beer Store being where the Beer Garden once was. Another example of this good change would be the long abandoned (and burnt) Adventure Dome that had briefly held a Lego attraction being turned into the Amazing Big Top Mirror and Lazer Maze in 2017. However a perfect example of negative change is the Rock Legends Wax Museum being forced out of business because a YouTube video of the museum was flagged for copyrighted music by YouTube's algorithms. This lead Sony Music to investigate the museum and shut it down last year if it wouldn't pay ridiculous licensing fees, which it couldn't afford.
Another example is IDS' redevelopment plan. HOCO is now locked in a contract with them, even though they obviously have very different ideas on the direction of Clifton Hill. Phase 1 was implemented in 2011, with Boston Pizza expanding their arcade to include Strike! Rock 'n Bowl and Dinosaur Park moving to where Quality Inn was and being renamed Dinosaur Adventure Golf. All of Costello's original dinosaurs (with the exception of the original Pterodactyl) would "migrate" to the new location where they would be joined by dozens of new mass-produced dinosaurs. Interestingly, foundations were built back in 2011 for the original 2 Brontosaurs to appear as if they were coming out of the ponds, but they wouldn't show up until 2019 when they were brought back out of storage to be installed, only to lay on the ground for a few months before going back into storage. Although it didn't use new hand-made figures, this attraction was a change that fits the spirit of Clifton Hill and was a good replacement for the empty plot of land that had once housed Quality Inn, even if an amusement park would have been better. The same cannot be said about the rest of IDS' plan. Many thematic elements installed throughout the hill by WHLLG (especially in Movieland and the Midway) were removed in phase 2 in 2013 simply to fit with IDS's image better, costing HOCO a lot of money. Phase 3 went ahead in 2015, and the 60 year old Comfort Inn was demolished, along with the old HOCO offices in it that if you remember from part 1, was the original nearly 200 year old stable building for the Zimmerman estate. Niagara Speedway was built in it's place, and if you look at the prices to drive it, then watch how many people do, you realize just how much they're making off it. Rumors Nightclub, originally the Queen's Door Nightclub in 1956, was gutted and turned into Zombie Attack and the new Kelsey's bathrooms, as the old ones had been in the Comfort Inn building. Phase 4 in 2018 extensively remodeled Wendy's as well as Boston Pizza, removing the patio.
Ghostblasters is now the final untouched WHLLG era attraction on the land. This is made even more troubling by the fact the signs for it were just removed and replaced with temporary ones, as I said in the post that started the entire discussion on whether or not I should do this series. If the attraction does go, we can only hope that a new interactive dark ride utilizing artistry, dimensional scenes and props much like Ghostblasters does is built, however that likely won't be the case. Triotech is the lead designer of ride through shooting games, that feature a dark ride car that travels through a hallway with screens on each side of it rather than real props. Triotech has dealt with HOCO before, building both the Wild West Coaster and Zombie Attack, so all signs point to one of these attractions replacing Ghostblasters if it closes.
There is still hope that Clifton Hill can retain it's spirit, but it stands at a crossroads. The House of Frankenstein for example, while retaining many original scenes, has had many removed and replaced with nothing, and many areas of the museum taken out entirely. Castle Dracula on the other hand hasn't updated a thing, but hasn't cared for the original scenes either, leaving them to fall into disrepair and only having 7 or 8 of the original 70 still lit, and none of them still functional. There are 2 directions Clifton Hill can go. With many attractions like the ones on HOCO's side being demolished to make way for whatever is trendy and lucrative, and many hanging on by a thread like Castle Dracula or Ghostblasters, the Hill is in real danger of becoming an endlessly overturning and developing area. However, with money recently being poured back into attractions like the Haunted House, Ripley's, and Guinness and attractions being redeveloped like the Falls Ave. complex or the Big Top Mirror maze, there is hope. If people, including the companies that own them, can recognise the historical value of attractions like Castle Dracula, The House of Frankenstien, Movieland, Tussaud's, etc., this can be promoted and the recent nostalgia boom can create large profits if this is played up. Additionally, future developments can still be more in the vein of what WHLLG envisioned for Clifton Hill, or what the Burlands recently did with the well done Big Top Mirror Maze. This is both profitable and economically sensible, as repeat customers that make memories and come to the area for generations with occasional new updates/re-themings (like what Clifton Hill did from the 50s-2010s), is far more profitable than a constantly turning over wave of new developments that cost millions to build that changes with each generation.
Thank you to everyone who has followed this series. Sorry for the length of this, but I promised this would be the last installment, so it has to be longer. If you have any information pertaining to Dazzleland or anything you know that I didn't cover in this series, let me know. Additionally, if you would like me to dig up photos on anything that I mentioned in the series, let me know, as unless it's the Dazzleland dragon, I probably have a photo of it. I will likely post many of them here anyway in time. Thanks again.
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Week 6 NCAAF ATS Predictions, Trends and Analysis

Week 6 NCAAF ATS Predictions, Trends and Analysis
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Week 6 NCAAF ATS Predictions, Trends and Analysis courtesy of RedAlertWagers.com

Written by Lester Cullen on October 8, 2020
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Boom...and we’re in Week 6 of the college football season (Corona Edition), even the SEC came to play. We will take a look at some of our consensus plays and provide some opinion based insight to put together some ATS winners.
For starters we will look at the Gators/Aggies matchup. The line has fluctuated from 7 to 6.5 and currently at Caesars Palace the spread is Florida Gators -6.5 -115 and Texas A&M +6.5 -105, linemakers are playing with the juice, moving it around a bit and charging to get the dog, they must think they have the number nailed at a touchdown spread and MAC is looking to beat that number!
Florida Gators vs Texas A&M Aggies
The Florida Gators have come out of the gate hot, QB Kyle Trask throwing 10 TD passes through their opening two games of the season. They have busted open the ATS record, going 8-3-1 through their last 12 games a legit 2-0 and ranked No. 4 in the AP poll after Georgia took the lead ahead of them following the Bulldogs win over Auburn.
The Aggies are 1-1 to start the season and they have a weak secondary that should get destroyed by the Gators offense. The MAC tends to stay away from Conference games because odds are usually tight & tough, it can be hard to find a solid pick, but our consensus groups have the Gators as a move and with the spread less than a TD this game has value
Play - Gators -6.5 (+10 Units)
Quick Trends-
  • Over is 4-0 in Gators last 4 games overall.
  • Over is 4-0 in Gators last 4 games as a favorite.
  • Over is 5-0 in Gators last 5 games on grass.
  • Gators are 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games following a ATS loss.
  • Over is 8-1 in Gators last 9 games as a road favorite
  • Under is 4-0 in Aggies last 4 games following a straight up loss.
  • Over is 4-0 in Aggies last 4 games as a home underdog.
  • Aggies are 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games overall.
  • Aggies are 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games following a straight up loss of more than 20 points.
  • Under is 7-1 in Aggies last 8 games after allowing less than 275 total yards in their previous game.
Pittsburgh Panthers vs Boston College Eagles
If you look at the recent trends for the Panthers, you see a team that is just 1-5-1 ATS in their last 7 games. That being said, the Panthers have been winning their games outright, they are 3-1 in the early going of the season, they just can’t get a cover, it’s pathetic, oddsmakers are cashing in on Pitt.
The Eagles have been great ATS, covering in 8 of their last 10, but as far as this game, our information is telling us to stay away. Boston College defense has nothing to brag about, unable to stop 3rd conversions makes a case for betting the over, the offense can’t run the ball, averaging 2.4 yards a carry, and they are last in the ACC in both of these categories. Jurkovec has thrown 2 picks, one in the end zone and the Heels took it home for a meaningless win, one good thing is they don’t lose fumbles and are +5 in turnover margin. MAC has Panthers to win this one, the line is -6 and has moved back and forth from 6.5 and 6, but most importantly MAC sees action coming in on the total and is moving on the over, opening at 46 and currently set at 44 this should be an easy 55-60 point game. The trends seems to be the under but going against the grain is why The MAC is one of the most recognized sports gamblers in the industry.
MAC’s Final Score Prediction - Pitt 35 - BC 23
Play - Over 44 (+5 Units)
Play - Pitt -6 (+5 Units)
Quick Trends:
  • Eagles are 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games following a straight up win.
  • Under is 4-0 in Eagles last 4 vs. a team with a winning record.
  • Under is 5-0 in Eagles last 5 games as an underdog
Miami Hurricanes vs Clemson Tigers
Given how dominant the Tigers have been in the ACC over the past few years, it is usually a bad idea to bet against them.The odds makers are giving them too much respect, our scouts are saying the line isn’t this high because of public money, it’s an inflated spread and could be a suckers bet. Let’s consider the fact that the Tigers have failed to cover this season and are now on a run of failing to cover in 4 straight games. MAC says play the ML hedge if laying the points, be smart and use bankroll management.
The Hurricanes have not had a lot of joy against Clemson in recent years, but are 5-1 ATS in their last 6 versus conference foes. With 43.3 points scored this season they are ranked #7, this could be another over play, though with the total set at 62, we will have to wait to see some line movement before placing any action on it.MAC has no apprehension when it comes to taking a shot and going against the grain, it’s what makes him a Vegas specialty. Take Miami to cover, take them, take the points, and take it to the bank.
MAC’s Final Score Prediction - Miami 21 - Clemson 35
Play: Miami +15 (+15 Units)
Play: Miami ML +450 (+4 UNITS)
Quick Trends:
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I see a lot of LP collections posted here. Does anyone appreciate a well organized digital collection?

1965 Jokers Wild (Dave Gilmour)(320)
1966 Tonite Let's All Make Love in London
1967 Arnold Layne
1967 Relics
1971 Pink Floyd - Relics (Remaster AU 1987 CDAX 701290)
1967 Scream Thy Last Scream
1967 See Emily Play & Scarecrow EP (Remaster UK 2007 Bonus CDM 40th ADEd. 50999 5 03919 2 9)
1967 The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (UK Stereo First Pressing 24bit-96khz)
1968 A Saucerful of Secrets
1968 Pink Floyd - A Saucerful Of Secrets (Remaster Japan 1988 CP32-5272)
1968 It Would Be So Nice
1968 Point Me at the Sky
1969 OST More (Remaster Japan 1987 CDP 7 46386 2)
1969 Soundtrack From The Film More
1969 Ummagumma
1969 Zabriskie Point e Ultimate Z. P
1969 Ultimate Zabriskie Point [FLAC]
1970 370 Roman Yards 1970 (The Lost Zabriskie Point Album) [MP3]
1970 Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother (Remaster US 1994 UDCD 595)
1970 Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother (UK LP EMI Harvest SHVL 781 24bit-96khz)
1970 Roger Waters - Music From The Body (Soundtrack)(320)
1970 Syd Barrett - Barrett
1970 Syd Barrett - The Madcap Laughs
1971 Pink Floyd - Meddle (Remaster Japan 1988 UDCD 518)
1971 Meddle - 24-96 Vinyl Rip (FLAC)
1971 One Of These Days Single Vinyl 7 (Italy 1971 EMR-20388)
1972 Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds (Remaster US 1987 CDP 7 46385 2)
1973 Money Vinyl 12 (Remaster Netherlands 1981 Vinyl 12 1A K052Z - 78068)
1973 The Dark Side of the Moon - (Vinyl LP 24-96 UK Remaster 30 Harvest SHVL 804 24Bit 96kHz) - 200g Vinyl Rip (FLAC) - Audiophile MFSL Pressing VINYL {FR1 Cartridge SYBORG} - Unreleased Tracks
1975 Wish You Were Here
1975 Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (Remaster UK 1984 CDP 7 46035 2) & Unreleased Tracks
1977 Animals- (2016 Master) VINYL {FR1 Mk3 Cart} - (2016 Master) VINYL {Stanton 881 Cart} - (Remaster US 1985 CK 34474) - (Vinyl LP 24-96 US Columbia First Pressing JC 34474 24Bit 96kHz)
1978 David Gilmour - David Gilmour
1978 Rick Wright - Wet Dream
1979 The Wall - (Remaster Germany 2007 2xCD CDS 7 46036 8) - (Remaster US 1989 2xCD UDCD 2-537) - US UltraDisc 2CD- (UK Vinyl 2xLP 24-96 SHDW 411 24Bit 96kHz) - The Wall Work In Progress
1981 Nick Mason's - Fictitious Sports
1983 Not Now John Vinyl 7 (UK 1983 HAR 5224)
1983 The Final Cut (Remaster EU 2007 Oh By The Way Boxset CD14 50999 511267 2 8, 511 2672)
1983 The Final Cut (US 1983 QC 38243)
1984 David Gilmour - About Face
1984 Rick Wright - Zee Identity
1984 Roger Waters - The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking
1986 Roger Waters - When The Wind Blows
1987 A Momentary Lapse Of Reason - [1987] [FLAC] - [2019] Remix
1987 Roger Waters - Radio K.A.O.S. (320)
1992 Roger Waters - Amused To Death
1994 High Hopes & Keep Talking (France 1994 CDM 881 777 2)
1994 Take It Back (Netherlands 1994 CDM 7243 8 81278 2 0)
1994 The Division Bell - (2014) [HD Tracks] 24.96 - (Japan 1994 SRCS 7324) - [UK 1994 Vinyl 24-96 EMD 1055]
1996 Rick Wright - Broken China
2002 Roger Waters - Flickering Flame
2004 Roger Waters - To Kill The Child & Leaving Beirut (Single)(320)
2005 Roger Waters - Ca Ira
2006 David Gilmour - Arnold Layne EP
2006 David Gilmour - On An Island
2006 Smile (1-Track EU Promo CD Single)(320)
2006 Smile (2-Track EU CD Single)(320)
2007 Roger Waters - Hello (I Love You)(Single)(192-320)
2010 The Orb and David Gilmour - Metallic Spheres
2014 The Endless River
1967-03-18 My Uncle Is Sick Because The Highway Is Green
1967-09-13 Starclub, Copenhagen
1967-09-25 BBC Playhouse Theater, London (BBC Sessions)
1967-10-30 Games for May - England
1967-11-13 Ahoy, Rotterdam, NL
1968-02-24 Bouton Rouge
1968-05-06 First European International Pop Festival, Piper Club, Rome
1968-05-23 Paradiso, Amsterdam (Late Show)
1968-07-27 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles
1968-12-28 Margriethal, Jaarbeurs, Utrecht
1968-12-28 Owed To Syd Barrett
1969-03-27 Saint James Hall, Chesterfield, England
1969-04-14 Royal Festival Hall, London
1969-04-27 Careful With These Tracks
1969-05-09 University Of Southampton, Hampshire, England
1969-06-22 Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England
1969-06-26 Royal Albert Hall, London
1969-08-08 The Journey Through the Past
1969-08-09 The Paradiso, Amsterdam - Celestial Instruments
1969-09-17 Amsterdam '69 (TSP-CD-052) 1990 [VBR]
1969-09-17 Complete Concertgebouw
1969-10-11 Song Days Festival, Essen
1969-10-19 Around the Mystic - London
1969-10-25 Interstellar Zappadrive - Mont de L'Enclus, Amougies, Belgium
1969-11-21 Montreux Switzerland
1969-12-06 Afan Lido Sports Center, Port Talbot, Wales
1969-71 Echoes Of Atom Heart Mother
1969-73 Rare & Live Tracks - 3cds
1970 - 1971 Eclipse (2001)
1970 Fat Old Gigs 4cd
1970 Pepperland In The West
1970-01-18 Fairfield Hall, Croydon, Surrey
1970-01-23 Hotel de Champs-Elysees a Paris, Paris
1970-02-11 Town Hall, Birmingham
1970-02-28 Refectory Hall, Leeds University, Leeds, Yorkshire
1970-03-12 A Trick of the Light
1970-03-13 The Injustice of a Kaleidoscope Sound
1970-03-14 Meistersinger Halle, Nuremberg
1970-03-15 Niedersachsenhalle, Hannover
1970-03-20 Akademiske Foreningens Store Sal, Lund, Sweden
1970-04-11 Gymnasium, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY
1970-04-22 Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY
1970-04-29 [HRVCDR016] Interstellar Fillmore - San Francisco, CA
1970-04-30 [HRVCDR034] - KQED
1970-05-01 Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA
1970-06-27 Bath Festival Of Blues And Progressive, Shepton Mallet, Bath
1970-06-28 Holland Pop Festival, Kralingen, Rotterdam (JFE remaster)
1970-07-12 Open Air Pop Festival Aachen, Aachen Soerser Stadium
1970-07-16 Focus - Paris Theater, Regent Street, London, England - BBC FM
1970-07-16 Libest Spacement Monitor (TSP-CD-027 1989)
1970-07-16 Mooed Music - BBC Session Live, Paris Cinema, London
1970-07-18 Hyde Park, London
1970-08-08 Les Nuits Musicales, Saint Tropez (Pop 2 TV Show)
1970-09 & 1971-03 - Eclipse - APE
1970-09-12 Parc De Vincennes, Paris
1970-09-16 Pink Is The Pig (Live In London)
1970-09-16 Pink Floyd - Focus 1971 [FM]
1970-09-16 Playhouse Theatre, London
1970-09-16 Rhapsody In Pink (Italy 1990 LLRCD 044)
1970-09-26 Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA
1970-09-27 Fillmore East, New York City, NY (Early Show)
1970-10-17 Pepperland Auditorium, San Rafael, CA
1970-10-23 Creatures Of The Deep Disc 1-3
1970-10-23 Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA
1970-11-06 Mind Your Throats
1970-11-07 Grote Zaal, De Doelen, Rotterdam
1970-11-11 Conserthuset, Gothenburg
1970-11-12 Falkoner Centret, Fredriksberg, Copenhagen
1970-11-13 Vejlby Risskovhallen, Aarhus
1970-11-14 Ernst-Merck-Halle, Hamburg
1970-11-21 Smokin' Blues (Montreux Casino, Montreux )
1970-11-22 Altes Casino, Montreux - Swiss Made
1970-11-25 Fridrich Ebert Halle, Ebertpark, Ludwigshafen
1970-11-26 Messehallen, Stuttgart
1970-11-29 Circus Krone, Munich
1970-12-22 City Hall, Sheffield
1971 Atom Heart Mother Goes On The Road
1971-02-12 Lecture Theatre, University Of Essex, Colchester
1971-02-13 Students Union Bar, Technical College, Farnborough
1971-02-25 Grosser Saal, Musikhalle, Hamburg
1971-02-26 Stadthalle, Offenbach
1971-04-03 Oude Ahoy, Rotterdam
1971-05-15 Crystal Palace Garden Party, London
1971-05-18 Pathfoot Building Refectory, Stirling University
1971-06-04 Philips Veranstal Tungshalle, Dusseldorf
1971-06-05 Echoes - The Return of the Son of Nothing (West Berlin)
1971-06-05 Sportspallast, Berlin - Mauerspechte
1971-06-05 Vierundzwanzig Teile von Nichts (HRV-CDR-029)
1971-06-12 Palais Des Sports, Lyon
1971-06-19 Palazzo Delle Manifestazioni Artistiche, Brescia
1971-06-20 Palaeur, Rome
1971-06-26 Amstel Free Concert, Amsterdamse Bos, Amsterdam
1971-07-01 Ossiach Festival Stitschoff, Ossiach
1971-08-06 Hakone Aphrodite, Hakone, Japan
1971-08-09 Festival Hall, Osaka
1971-08-13 Festival Hall, Melbourne
1971-09-18 Live in Montreux
1971-09-23 KB Hallen, Copenhagen
1971-09-30 Meddled
1971-09-30 Meddler
1971-09-30 One Of These Days (TSP-CD-034 1989)
1971-09-30 Paris Cinema, London
1971-10-04 HRVCDR010 - Pompeii Rev B
1971-10-04 Live at Pompeii - Remains
1971-10-04 Pompeii (Remaster Netherlands PFP-A0118)
1971-10-04 to 07 In The Shadow Vesuvius - Italia
1971-10-04 Volcanic Destruction
1971-10-07 Live At Pompeii
1971-10-10 Great Hall, Bradford University, Bradford, Yorkshire
1971-10-16 The Eye of Agamotto - Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica
1971-10-17 Convention Hall, Community Concourse, San Diego
1971-10-17 From Oblivion
1971-10-17 Wind And Seabirds - Convention Hall, San Diego
1971-10-27 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL
1971-10-28 Hill Auditorium, Ann Harbor, MI
1971-10-31 Fieldhouse University Of Toledo
1971-11-05 Hunter College - New York City, NY
1971-11-06 Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
1971-11-10 Labyrinths - Pavillion De La Jeunesse, Quebec
1971-11-12 Irvine Auditorium, State University, Philadelphia, PA
1971-11-16 Something from Nothing
1971-11-16 The Return of the Sons of Nothing
1971-11-20 Embryonic Madness
1971-11-20 One Of Those Days
1971-11-20 Taft Auditorium, Cincinnati, OH
1971-11-20 Taft Auditorium, Cincinnati, OH (2-source blend)
1972-01-20 The Darkside Rehearsals - Brighton Dome, Brighton, England
1972-01-21 The Guildhall, Portsmouth
1972-01-22 Eclipse Of The Dark Side - Winter Gardens, Bournemouth (Recorder 2)
1972-01-22 The Dark Side Winter Gardens - Bournemouth (Recorder 1)
1972-01-23 Gathering On The Moon - The Guildhall, Southampton
1972-01-27 Waiting for The Moon - City Hall, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne
1972-01-28 You Are Number Six - Refectory Hall, Leeds University, Leeds
1972-02-17 - Rainbow Tapes Day 1
1972-02-18 - Rainbow Tapes Day 2
1972-02-19 - Rainbow Tapes Day 3
1972-02-20 - Rainbow Tapes Day 4
1972-02-19 Finsbury Park - Disc 1
1972-02-20 Finsbury Park - Disc 1
1972-02-20 The Best Of Tour 72 (TSP-CD-049 1990) [VBR]
1972-03-06 Acid Moon - Taiikukan, Tokyo, Japan
1972-03-08 Natural Dark In Osaka. Japan
1972-03-09 Echoes From Osaka
1972-03-13 The Dark Side Of The Ice - Saporro, Japan
1972-03-13 The Great Gig On The Moon
1972-04-28 Chicago
1972-05-21 2nd British Rock Meeting - Germersheim, Germany
1972-06-28 Eclipsed By The Dome - Brighton [MP3]
1972-09-22 Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood, CA
1972-09-22 Staying Home To Watch The Rain[VBR]
1972-10-21 The Oxfam Concert - London [MP3]
1972-11-15 Echoes Of The Past, Sporthalle Böblingen, Stuttgart, Germany
1972-11-15 The Great Gig In Böblingen
1972-12-01 Harsh Realities [Stereo Tweaked]
1972-12-09 - In a Neutral Land - Zurich - Suiça (FLAC)
1972-12-12 Across The Swiss Border
1972-73 Nebulosity
1972-73 The Great Gig In The Sky (UK Unofficial SSR 41925)
1973-03-06 The Valley Of The Kings
1973-03-11 Yeeshkul!
1973-03-14 Live Music Hall - Boston, MA
1973-03-15 Dark Soundboard of Philadelphia
1973-03-17 Dark Side of Radio City
1973-05-19 Supine in the Sunshine
1973-06-17 On Stage Saratoga NY
1973-06-20 Breaking Bottles In The Hall
1973-06-20 Merryweather Post Pavillion, Columbia, MD
1973-06-29 When You're In...Tampa
1973-10-13 Set The Controls... - Vienna [MP3]
1973-11-04 Obscured At The Rainbow [VBR]
1974-06-24 Shine On Paris
1974-11-15 Black Holes In The Sky
1974-11-15 Work in Progress
1974-11-16 BBC Archives (HRV CDR 033)
1974-11-16 No Room Upon The Hill
1974-11-16 Time In London
1974-11-16 Wembley MTX-V2
1974-11-16 Wembley Pre FM-Master
1974-11-16 Wembley Wizards
1974-11-17 Getting Better All The Time
1974-11-28 Empire Theatre
1974-12-09 Manchester Day '74
1974-12-14 Stairstep To Abandon - Bristol, England [Vinyl]
1975-04-08 Azimuth Coordinator Pt. 1
1975-04-13 Riding The Cow.Cow Palace,California,USA
1975-04-26 Cruel But Fair
1975-04-26 Dogs And Sheep
1975-04-27 Hogs in Smog
1975-04-27 Los Angeles, CA master
1975-06-15 Faster Jersey
1975-06-15 Jersey Not Mother
1975-06-16 Random Precision
1975-06-18 Boston Garden Matrix Version
1975-06-18 Boston Gardens
1975-06-18 Crazy Diamonds [VBR]
1975-06-18 Echoes In The Gardens
1975-06-22 Heavy Rain
1975-06-28 Master Reel - Ontario (RTR-DAT-Source 2) (flac)
1975-80 - Azimuth Coordinator 1975 a 1980 (6CD box 1998)
1977-01-05 Iron Pigs On Fire - Fort Worth, Texas
1977-01-23 - If Pigs Could Fly
1977-01-23 Bugger's Eyes
1977-01-29 Desk Pig In Berlin
1977-01-30 Absolut Floyd
1977-01-30 Hunting Animals - Berlin, Germany
1977-02-01 Test Flight - Vienna, Austria
1977-02-20 Animals In Belgium - Antwerpen [FLAC]
1977-02-20 Ducks On The Wall
1977-02-20 Thirteen
1977-02-22 Dragged Down By The Stone
1977-02-22 Pavillion de Pigs
1977-02-27 Animals On The Wing
1977-04-22 Hurricane Floyd Hits - Miami FL
1977-05-01 Iron Pigs On Fire
1977-05-09 Animal Instincts
1977-05-09 Mr Pig - Oakland [MP3]
1977-06-19 Chicago '77
1977-06-19 Soldier Field, Chicago, IL (1st gen Charly C.'s tape - source 1)
1977-06-27 Boredom and Pain (Boston Gardens)
1977-06-27 Boston Garden, Boston, MA - The Perfect Day (FLAC)
1977-06-27 Boston Garden, Boston, MA (Lampinski)
1977-06-27 Pink Floyd 1977-06-27
1977-07-01 Live at Madson Square Garden
1977-07-02 In the Grassland Away
1977-07-02 Live at Madson Square Garden
1977-07-02 Prog King - Madison Square Garden
1977-07-02 Welcome To The Machine
1977-07-03 Madson Square Garden - New York
1977-07-03 Pigs Might Fly
1977-07-04 Sheep Independence Day (FLAC)
1977-07-06 Azimuth Coordinator Pt. 2 - Last Animals
1977-07-06 Fire Works Show In The Canadian Walls
1977-07-06 Montreal
1977-07-06 Who Was Trained Not To Spit On The Fan
1980-01-01 The Wall Rehearsals 1980
1980-02-07 Azimuth Coordinator Pt. 3 - flac16
1980-02-08 Little Black Book With My Poems In
1980-02-27 The Wall Live In Nassau
1980-02-28 Nassau - Coliseum - NY
1980-08-09 Soundboard on the Wall - Earls Court, London, England
1980-1981 Is There Anybody Out There The Wall Live
1981-02-19 Tear Down The Wall
1981-02-20 The Sixth German Show-Westfalenhalle, Dortmund
1981-02-20 Westfallenhalle,Dortmund, Germany
1981-06-16 Earl's Court, London (Watching The World Upon The Wall)
1984-04-30 (Gilmour) Live At The Hammersmith Odeon (London )(320)
1984-05-22 (Gilmour) Beacon Theater - New York City-NY
1984-06-16&17 (Waters w. Clapton) Sidewinder (Stockholm)
1984-06-29 (Gilmour) New Game - Berkeley [FLAC]
1984-07-12 (Gilmour and Friends) In Floyd We Trust (320)
1984-07-12 (Gilmour) Westwood One Concert (48kHz)(320)
1984-07-18 (Waters) Eric the Player, Roger the Singer
1985-03-20 (Waters) Live Radio City Music Hall, NYC [FM]
1985-03-28 (Waters) Complete Hitch Hiking Perfomance
1987-09-16 Echoes By The Lake Disc 1-3
1987-09-19 Prism
1987-11-01 Live at the Orange Bowl, Miami
1987-11-07 (Waters) Goodbye Mr. Pink Floyd (Remaster)
1987-11-30 MONEY GOES WEST - (The Sports Arena - Los Angeles, California)
1988 Delicate Sound Of Thunder (UK 7914802)
1988-02-19 Live in Melbourne (SOUNDBOARD)
1988-02-19 Melbourne - Soundboard Recording
1988-02-19 Tennis Center, Melbourne
1988-07-08 Nothing Is Changed (Modena, Italy) [VBR]
1989-06-12 Globe Arena, Stockholm
1989-06-13 Globe Arena, Stockholm
1989-06-14 Globe Arena, Stockholm
1989-07-01 Palais Omnisport de Paris Bercy, Paris, France
1989-07-15 Live In Venice 1989 {FLAC]
1989-07-15 Venice, Grand Canal
1990 (Waters) The Wall - Live In Berlin
1990-06-30 Of Promises Broken
1990-06-30 The Knebworth Tales
1994-03-30 Miami - The Live Bell
1994-04-16 Your Favorite Disease
1994-04-21 Pigs Over The San Francisco Bay
1994-04-21 They're Blowin Me Away - Oakland Master DAT
1994-05-31 3 Pigs At 3 Rivers
1994-06-11 The Bell Gets Louder
1994-07-18 By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
1994-08-13 The Sound Surrounds
1994-09-04 Softly Spoken Magic Spells - Feyenoord [MP3]
1994-09-13 A Night In Italy
1994-09-13 A Passage Of Time
1994-09-15 Udine - Italy
1994-09-19 - The Nights Of Wonder
1995 Pulse
1995 Wish You Were Here Live (CDM 7243 8 82207 2 9)
2000 (Waters) In The Flesh (Live)
2001-06 2002-01 David Gilmour in Concert (320)
2002-03-05 (Waters) The Happiest Night of Our Lives - National Stadium, Santiago
2005-07-02 Live 8 Reunion
2006-03-07 (Gilmour) Mermaid Theatre - London
2006-03-19 (Gilmour) Regathering Our Senses - Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam [FA025]
2006-05 (Gilmour) 2007 - Remember That Night
2006-07-29 Happy Birthday Dear Richard (Archive Konigsplatz Munich rec 4)
2006-08-26 (Gilmour) Live In Gdansk
2006-12-07 (Waters) Milan, Italy FM
2007 (Gilmour) 4 Tracks Live From Abbey Road (US Promo CD Single)(320)
2007-03-14 (Waters) 50000 Lunatics on The Grass Chile '07
2007-07-07 (Waters) Live Earth 2007
2008-06-15 (Gilmour) Ron's Psychedelic Supper Vol.2
2010-07-10 (Waters & Gilmour) The Hoping Foundation (320)
2010-09-15 (Waters) The Wall Live - Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
2010-09-16 (Waters) The Wall Live - Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
2010-09-18 (Waters) The Wall Live - Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
2010-09-20 - Roger Waters - The Wall - Chicago [MP3]
2010-12-18 (Waters) Flickering Flames On The Wall - Palacio De Los Deportes, Mexico D.F
2010-12-19 (Waters) Flickering Flames On The Wall - Palacio De Los Deportes, Mexico D.F
2010-12-21 (Waters) Flickering Flames On The Wall - Palacio De Los Deportes, Mexico D.F
2011-03-25 (Waters) Madrid - Experimento
2011-05-15 (Waters) Live At O2 Arena, London, England
2017 Live at Pompeii [FLAC]
David_Gilmour - Live Tracks - MP3
1965 - Syd Barrett - Lucy Leave and Other Rarities [FLAC,Tracks]
1965-95 - Pinkie Milkie - Rarities Compilation
1966-67 London '66 - '67 (UK 1995 CDM SFMDP 3)
1966-67 Psychedelic Games for May
1966-71 Sophisticated Colours
1966-94 Early Flights Disc 1-10
1967 Reaction In G
1967-69 Music For Architectural Students
1967-71 Antiques- A Rare Collection of Oddities
1967-71 Antiques And Curios
1967-87 A CD Full Of Secrets
1968 Tonite Let's All Make Love in London OST
1968-69 The Embryo (TSP-CD-020 1989) [VBR]
1968-70 - Old Symphonies 1968-1970 - FM
1968-70 Ultra Rare Trax Vol. 1-3
1968-71 Spiral
1968-74 From Underground To The Moon
1969 - High Time
1969 - The Complete Zabriskie Point Sessions
1969-70 Omay Yad
1969-99 - Roger Waters - Rarities Vol 1-3
1970-71 - Syd Barrett - The Radio One Sessions
1971-72 Studio Outtakes & Demos
1972-06 From the Other Side (DSOTM Outtakes)
1975 - Tour Comic book
1975-76 Abbey Road to Britannia Row The Extraction Tapes (2014)
1978 The Wall- Under Construction
1978-79 Building The Wall
1979 Every Brick In The Wall (outtakes)
1980 - The Wall - Original Film Sessions 1980
1980 The Wall (Demos)
1982 The Final Cutting
1987 A Momentary Lapse of Reason Live Official Tour CD (Demonstration Not For Sale)
1987 One Slip CDM (UK 1987 CDEM 52)
1988 - A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (Official Tour CD)_flac
1990-05-02 - Roger Waters - The London Rehearsals 1990
1994 - Just Warmin Up - The Rehearsals in Tampa - 1994
Pink Floyd - Just Warming Up (Tampa 1994 )
1996 Pink Floyd & Friends - Interstellar Overdrive (Canada 1996 PS-NEMS 1001-2)
2001 Pink Underground
2005...A Desperate Attempt of Perfection
2010 - Roger Waters - Is It The Fifth
A Tree Full Of Secrets (18xCD Box Rarities)
Have You Got It Yet
2008 Have You Got It Yet v2
HYGIY v2.0 Vol. 1
Live Anthology
Roger Waters - Rarities Vol 1-3
Secret Rarities (2014
Star Profile - audio documentary
Variations on a Theme of Absence 8-CD
1965-72 The Early Years Limited Edition 10CD [FLAC]
1967 The First 3 Singles (Remaster UK 1997 7243 8 59895 2 0)
1967 The Syd Barrett Tapes
1967-11-17 The First Singles
1967-1973 - Anthology II [HL 325-326]
1967-68 Masters of Rock
1967-68 The Early Singles (EU 1992 0777 7 80572 2 2)
1967-71 The Complete BBC Sessions
1967-93 - Total Eclipse - A Retrospective 1967-1993 - Italy
1981 A Collection Of Great Dance Songs (Remaster Japan 2001 TOCP-65744)
1983 Works (US 1983 CDP 7 46478 2)
1988 - Syd Barrett - Opel
1992 - La Carrera Panamericana
1992 - Syd Barrett - Octopus
1995 - Greatest Hits 3 - Post Pink - 1995 - MP3.320kbps
1999 - Legendary Rock Stars - Greatest Hits
2001 - Echoes The Best Of Pink Floyd (US 2001 2xCD CDP 7243 5 36111 2 5)
2003 - Roger Waters - Flickering Flame (320)
2007 - David Gilmour - Take a Best (Bootleg)(320)
2007 - Greatest Hits - Star Mark - 320Kbps
2010 - Syd Barrett - An Introduction to Syd Barrett (2010)
2011 - CD Sampler - 2011
Syd Barrett - Wouldn't You Miss Me -The Best of Syd Barrett
1994 Dark Side Of The Moon -[Trance]
1994 Wish You Were Here [Trance]
1995 Meddle (Trance Remix)
1998 A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (Trance)
2000 Welcome to the Remix
2003 Easy Star All Stars - Dub Side of the Moon
2003-01-01 - The Floydian Propulsion Project
2004 Out There
2005 The Dark Side Of A Dream [320]
2006 DJ Fish Remixes
2006 Pink Floyd & Eric Prydz - Proper Education
2010 DSotM - Moon8 - 8 bits
1995 The London Philharmonic Orchestra - The Music Of Pink Floyd
2002 Pigs and Pyramids An Allstar Lineup Performing the Songs of Pink Floyd
2005 The Piano Tribute To Pink Floyd
2006 Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Pink Floyd
1988 - Audio Documentario - Star Profile
2002 - Wish Youd Been Here - The Pink Floyd Story - Radio BBC
1974 - Tour Comic - 1974
1976 - Songbook
1987 - Songbook (VictorF)
2000 - Guitar Tab Anthology
submitted by pslickhead to pinkfloyd [link] [comments]

Madison Square Garden - A Comprehensive History

Since there was a lot of positive response to my comment on the KD thread about The Garden, I floated the idea of a thread, and you all asked for it, so here it is! Here at reddit, there can be a lot of LOL this (Knicks) and LOL that (Knicks again), and while MSG certainly has its own shortcomings to say the least, there is a true story to be told about the buildings and how it came to be where it is today.
Known as ‘The Worlds Most Famous Arena’, MSG played a direct roll in making sports in America what it is today, and while many people criticize the current incarnation of the building, most people don’t know the full story - or that the current one is actually the 4th version (and 3rd location) of the building. The college basketball history at MSG, which I won’t give away yet, is one of if not THE main reason we have our beloved NBA and professional basketball in general today. This is going to be a very long read, like, very very long. But I’m going to try and throw all the really juicy facts in there that I picked up along my years of research from working in the tour department. I thought of splitting it up, but I wanted this post to be a comprehensive history of The World’s Most Famous Arena!
If you’re only concerned with the history of the joint once basketball enters into the picture, skip to MSG III.
If you want the juicy details on the controversy of tearing down old Penn Station then skip to MSG IIII.
If you have any questions on anything or want me to elaborate on anything that I only mention briefly, please feel free to ask! MSG’s history is full of not only amazing moments, but vengeful murders, and a whole lot of sketchy stuff. This is the story of how a small train station on the north east corner of Madison Square Park eventually led to the demolition of an iconic NYC train station some 100 years later. It’s not on Madison Avenue, it’s not square, and it’s not a garden, but there is a good reason for all of this - or at least a good explanation - I promise!
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN I
Ironically, just how this story’s climax involves tearing an iconic train station down to build the current arena, the beginning starts in much the same way. Just with a significantly less iconic train station. In the mid 1800’s there was a small railroad depot on the north east corner of Madison Square Park, occupied by New York and Harlem Railroad on East 26th street and Madison Ave and owned by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. For those of you not familiar with the city (yes, we call it ‘the city’) that location is pretty central and throughout time has had a lot of important events happen there, which is a thread for another time. The park was named for president James Madison, just like the street, which was very common at the time. People loved that guy.
The railroad opened up another location you may have heard of, by the name of ‘Grand Central Station’ in 1871, therefor leaving the smaller rail depot on 26th street abandoned. After a few vacant years, the building was leased to PT Barnum, who converted it into what he called the ‘Great Roman Hippodrome’. This place was a big open air oval ‘arena’ where he did exactly what you’d expect. Circuses etc. What happens next is where things start getting interesting.
Then the building was leased to a band leader named Patrick Gilmore. Some historians in that field feel like Gilmore is a forgotten guy compared to the likes of John Phillips Sousa, who is really the only person we common modern folk recognize in terms of old timey band leaders. But Gilmore was a very important figure of his day. Gilmore purchased the building and…wait for it…called it Gilmore’s Concert GARDEN. ‘Garden’ was a semi-popular add on to entertainment centers in NY during that era, starting with what I can tell from my research when Castle Clinton (aka, the old fort turned venue turned place you buy your tickets to go out to the Statue of Liberty now) was converted into a venue called Castle garden in the 1820s.
The other notable contributions Gilmore made to The Garden are holding the first Westminster Kennel Club dog show, the longest running garden event obviously still held there today, and even doing the first boxing matches there. I always found this bit fascinating, because boxing matches were technically illegal at the time. He called them ‘illustrated lectures’ and as any good New Yorker trying to make a buck does, found a way around the rules and got away with it. This is a common theme within the history of The Garden as you will see.
The arena changed hands a few more times, first to an administrator with the dog show, who also started to do more sporty things like tennis and installing one of the first ‘indoor’ ice rinks in the US.
The building went back into Vanderbilt control when Commodore died, by his grandson William Vanderbilt. He was the one who decided, the ‘garden’ part was cool, but since it wasn’t leased by Gilmore anymore, he would rename it after the park which it shared a border. Hence the name, Madison Square Garden. He expanded the range of events that were held there including adding bicycle racing. This would be by far the most widely beloved event held at the Garden, including a long running race called ‘Six Days of New York’ where an insane SIX day bike race would be held. These were basically just endurance contests, with a single bicyclist doing as many laps as possible, they could sleep whenever and join back in whenever. This was all the rage, but also dangerous for not only the participants but the spectators. People who wanted to soak up all the action were easy targets for crooks who were also in attendance. These events were so popular nationwide however, that there is even a bicycle discipline called ‘Madison’ named after the OG garden.
The building however ran its course, because of its lack of roof and decaying infrastructure.
What I mean by decaying can probably best be summed up by the disaster which many people now a days don’t know of, when part of the building collapsed falling outward into the street and some of the roof also caving in with 800 people inside. Apparently it was chaos, and 20 something people were killed or injured. It’s pretty brutal, and if you want to know more about that incident you can read the newspaper article from the time here.
Vanderbilt sold the spot to who's who collection of rich white men. JP Morgan, Carnegie, Astor etc. So they decided to tear it down and build a new extremely extravagant arena on the same spot. They got renowned architect Stanford White (more on him later) and they demolished the building in 1889. After spending more than half a million dollars, MSG II was built.
Madison Square Garden II
By this point, MSG was still not the household name it would become in the future. This building was supposed to change that narrative, which is why these rich guys went all in on it. You’ll see, that they were maybe in over their heads. However, this might be the most fascinating of all the MSGs for several reasons.
Firstly, the building was extremely extravagant. That can not be overstated. I would encourage you all to just google pictures of the building, it was massive and you’ll see all the features I’m describing here. It featured a huge 32 story tall bell tower, which was good for the 2nd tallest building in the city at the time. The bellower was topped by a sculpture of the goddess Diana the huntress, which was sculpted by famous artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and was gilt in copper. They moved the statue not soon after, and you can see it today at the Philly Museum of art! It spun around in the wind, and their original brilliant idea was to have an actual cloth scarf draped on it, but since wind exists, it got blown away not too long after its installation.
Its main hall was the largest in the world. It had not only the main hall which sat 8,000 but just like today’s garden, had a small theater which sat 1200, and even another concert hall which sat 1500. Of course they also had the largest restaurant in the city, because why not. And because it is ‘The Garden’ they decided there should be a roof garden cabaret. They thought this would be a landmark the likes of central park, and it was certainly grandiose enough. They had the same kind of events that the first garden did, including sports, concerts, and all the random stuff they found fun before the invention of TV (not to mention radio, or at least the widespread broadcast of radio). But the problem was, the building was so damn extra, that they had a hard time making enough money to upkeep the place.
Now let’s talk about the architect. Stanford White is probably best remembered for designing the Triumphal arch in Washington square, but then closely followed by being murdered in his own building, MSG II, in a lovers quarrel. This was huge news at the time, and so was the trial that ensued, they called it ‘The Trial of The Century’. The building, being as ridiculous as it was, of course housed an apartment for White, and millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw was not too happy with White who apparently had an affair with his actress wife when she was 16. So he came through, and shot him dead in his own building. It’s all incredibly sketchy and simultaneously intriguing, involving major names of the day, which is probably why the trial was so juicy and gripping in the eyes of the general public.
Anyways, the building was ultimately a failure, and didn’t last very long in retrospect. Everyone knew what Madison Square Garden was, and it was a landmark from 1890-1926, but the building failed to live up to expectations, much less make money. A 36 year run is really nothing to write home about, especially with the illusions (or better yet delusions) of grandeur its rich owners had in mind. There were some important sporting events that happened there, but what would happen in the next building would be the reason The Garden is now known as, The Worlds most Famous Arena. Interestingly the building there today, the New York Life Insurance Company, was built on that plot directly after MSG II was demolished. They owned the mortgage on the building, so they just built their headquarters there. It’s an iconic building in its own right, and if you’re on the NE corner of the park, there’s a plaque on the building which notes that it was the location of the first 2 Gardens.
The only thing MSG still had was, well, the name. And in walked Tex Rickard, to seize an opportunity that proved to be golden.
Madison Square Garden III
If you’ve never heard of Tex Rickard, think PT Barnum, Don King, etc. He was the leading boxing (and more) promoter of the day, and was a very successful businessman, operating saloons, hotels, casinos, and the like. He was a country boy, born in Missouri and raised in Texas, but had a knack for business and promotion. Tex saw the opportunity to buy the name, and incorporated the ‘New Madison Square Garden Corporation’ in 1923. It was smart, although MSG II didn't make money, it was still a household name in NYC. The purpose was to build a less extravagant arena, but a place that would be iconic in its own right and host major sporting events, including NHL games. This is where MSG started to make a name for itself as a major player in venues, and eventually THE most famous arena in the world. So Tex bought a big block of land quite a bit of a ways away from the original site of The Garden, on 8th avenue between 49th and 50th street. He basically built a big box, designed by theater architect Thomas Lamb, at the cost of almost 5 million dollars and in a remarkable 249 days. I think it’s sufficient to say that ol’ Tex knew how to get things done. He had a bunch of rich backers, plenty of clout, and he threw his arena up in sharp contrast to the old garden. It did however have a very iconic marquee, and if you talk to anyone who was around at the time they will note that the marquee was the distinguishing feature of the building. The main draw originally was boxing, as that was Tex’s bag. They had major fights, and drew much larger crowds than the older gardens, mostly because they could cram almost 20,000 people in there. The site lines were apparently terrible, but by all accounts the energy that still haunts the current garden, was the main draw.
Then, hockey happened. This was the idea from the start, as fellow sports promoter Thomas Duggan had options on three expansion teams for the NHL, to be established in the US. One became the Bruins, and then one was arranged to be given to NYC’s most-celebrated prohibition bootlegger Bill Dwyer, who arranged with Tex to have the team play at MSG III. Tex had an agreement with the first team they started, The New York Americans, aka The Amerks (ever heard of them?), that they would be the only hockey team to ever play at The Garden. Although there was a clause in the contract that Tex claimed he would never exercise, that claimed if Tex and MSG ever made a bid for a team, the Amerks would support it. Tex kept his word for approximately one year, when due to the American’s success, he went out and got himself a hockey team. The tabloids dubbed this team Tex’s Rangers, an obvious play on words, and you can guess what that team that became today. The Rangers soon eclipsed the Amerks in success, and The Garden’s lore began to grow as the place to be in NYC.
One more note on Tex, and maybe the most important in my biased Knicks ‘no other arena is THE GARDEN’ mind. he started 7 other Madison Square Garden’s around the country. Including ‘Boston Madison Square Garden’ which as you may guess, became known as Boston Garden. Thats right Celtics fans, your building was named after ours. Thanks Tex, for unknowingly providing another iconic building, that the future inhabitants of your NYC building would lose in over and over again! Anyways…now is where basketball becomes the star - so you can all start paying attention!
At the time, nobody thought professional basketball was a viable way of making money. Rickard passed away in 1929, and during the great depression things stayed somewhat status quo, but also there were now a lot of days where the giant arena wasn’t being used at all. Then, in walked Ned Irish, a successful sports journalist who quit his job covering basketball games for the World-Telegram, to start promoting basketball games at MSG III. The Garden let him promote and hold games there, as long as he would just cover the rent, that’s how bad things were economically. To everyone’s pleasant surprise, the college games became a lot more financially successful than anyone had anticipated. Along with making money, these college games were probably the number one factor in growing the game nationwide in general. College ball became the marquee (pun intended) event at MSG III, especially the double headers. This was a time, before the infamous point shaving scandals, that NYC college basketball was a force in the college game. It’s hard to believe now, but teams like NYU and CCNY were the equivalent of today’s Duke and UNC. By 1946, they were selling out the arena, and the city (and country) had fallen in love with the game of basketball. The NIT was started during this time, and even the first televised basketball game happened there in the form of a Fordham-Pitt / Georgetown-NYU doubleheader. The previously mentioned point shaving scandal involving the NYC schools hamstrung Irish’s ability to put on marquee matchups at MSG III, as a lot of the major teams were banned from playing there, and the NCAA reduced its use of the arena as a result.
Ned, being the promoter genius that he was, saw the success of the college game, knew his limitations with that now, and thought…Why can’t we do this with professional athletes and start a league? There had technically been professional basketball being played at MSG III since its inception, but it was traveling teams like the original Celtics, which weren’t associated with a league. People just didn’t think there was enough money in it, or a means and arenas to have such a league. So with other owners of hockey arenas around the US (and Canada!) They started the NBA in 1946. It wasn’t instantly as popular as the college game as you may suspect, with the Knicks even having to play at the 69th (nice) regiment armory when a college game was on that took priority over the NBA. Ironically, the armory was a few blocks away from the original location of MSG I and II, on Lexington between 25th and 26th, it’s still there for those NYers who happen to walk by and notice the building.
There were other major nationally news worth events that happened at MSG III, including a host of politically themed ventures including both a packed Nazi rally (really, and people were NOT happy about it as you may imagine) and an anti-nazi rally. There are some very famous photos and press about the pro Nazi rally, which happened in 1939 and was organized by the ‘German American Bund’. As Nazi's were wont to do, they recorded the thing, and for what it's worth, its some of the best and most crisp footage of the old garden although the Nazi's really spoil it - Here are the receipts. If only they put their efforts into making beautiful videos of basketball games instead of hate. Too bad the guy who charged the stage didn't do any damage, and I hate to think of what they did to him. Anyways before I get too riled up, a few years later this group would be banned, but MSG certainly took some heat for allowing this to go down, and deservedly so. The tradition of MSG doing anything for a buck holds strong!
Probably the most noteworthy event ever held in that venue was also somewhat a political event. The most famous version of ‘Happy Birthday’ ever sung took place at JFK’s birthday party, sung of course by Marilyn Monroe, at MSG III. Most people probably had no idea where this took place, and it may be realistically the most famous moment from any of the incarnations of MSG.
Another one of my favorite stories from that time is when they had first built MSG III there was a boxer, who’s name escapes me but this is the NBA sub so you all don’t care, that didn’t realize there was a new venue, so he showed up at the site of MSG II only to see that it had been demolished. He scooted uptown as quickly as he could, and won his fight. There is a whole host of boxing history that went down there, but I won’t bore you all with the details, just go look it up if you’re interested! The boxing events most of you have heard of, such as The Fight of the Century, would happen at the building that stands today, MSG IIII.
Now, on to the controversy.
Madison Square Garden IIII (current arena)
This is all just fact, and I won’t get into my biased opinion on why or why not this was the right thing to do. I’m going to lay out the full controversy before I get into some fun facts about the current arena…So here goes…
Yes, there was an above ground Penn Station. It was thought of as one of the most iconic and beautiful landmarks in NYC. Look up some pictures, it’s very cool.
In 1959, Graham-Paige bought a 40% stake in MSG for $4 million. Then, in 1960, Graham-Paige president Irving Felt (old NYers will recognize the name, the Felt Forum, which was the original name for the theater under the arena floor) bought the right to Penn Station. The idea was always that he would tear the old station down, and build the sports complex. The Pennsylvania Railroad company sold the air rights to the property because passenger traffic was on the decline after WW2, and they weren’t making enough money to upkeep the station. I’m sure the Penn Railroad company wasn’t too keen on tearing the building down, but Felt made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. In exchange for the rights of a building they couldn’t support anymore, the Penn Railroad company got a brand new, smaller station completely below the street at no cost, and also a 25% stake in the new MSG complex. That probably worked out ok for them. People tried to save the old station, as it was a beautiful and a lot of people were outraged that the city would let this happen. At the end of the day, the city voted to demolish the building in 1963. A lot went into this, it was simply too much for the railroad company to upkeep, and like I said, they got a pretty great offer. Also, they had at first optioned the air rights to William Zeckendorf in 1954, and he had some plans which would reconfigure the train station into several different things including a ‘world trade center’ and a ‘Palace of Progress’. These things didn’t come to pass, again, this was a MASSIVE building. Now it should be noted, if NYC wanted to save the building, they could have saved the building. It would not have been cheap, but they could have done it. However the city thought that since it was originally intended to be a ‘cost-effective and functional piece of the city’s infrastructure’ it was now mostly just a ‘monument to the past’. Pretty cold, but the city had a history of destroying historic buildings to build even more historic ones. A lot of the criticism from people after MSG4 was built, was that this was not the case in this instance, as opposed to say - tearing down the original Waldorf-Astoria to put up the Empire State Building. That one in retrospect, doesn’t have as much contention. The city thought they were being ‘progressive’ and from what I can gather, people didn’t believe they were actually going to tear the building down until they actually started doing it. When they actually started tearing it down, it sparked international outrage. As another user pointed out on the other thread, this led to the establishment of the NYC landmarks preservation commission, which did in fact save Grand Central from demolition in 1968. So that’s a silver lining to all of this. NYC didn’t step up to save the old Penn Station, but its demolition was not in vain. The outrage that it caused has surely saved plenty of other historic buildings from their demise. Like I said, I’m not trying to say it was right or wrong, this post is simply to state the facts on what happened and why it all happened.
(((I realize that I may have been typing hastily and drunk when I responded with why the old landmark Penn Station building was torn down for the new MSG. Admittedly, my timeline was slightly off, as the ‘no property tax’ thing happened afterwards to keep the Knicks / Rangers / MSG in the city. I went back into my research and wanted to make sure I explained what happened 100% accurately. Even though nobody disputed this in the thread, my post may have been confusing and the timeline in my head was a bit skewed, as I said the threat of moving to NJ was a factor in them originally tearing the train station down. This was the reason for the property tax cut, but not the original demo of the train station, as you've just read. I wanted to make sure the accurate story was told. So this should clear up the timeline, and why and when things happened the way they did.)))
The next big controversy is what I had a little mixed up in my original post, as I clumped it together with the original controversy, and that is the threat of the teams moving to New Jersey. This did happen and this is where it gets very, very, VERY sketchy.
In 1982, when Gulf and Western owned MSG, they threatened to move the teams to NJ, as the Giants and Jets had done, and also the Devils although they didn’t come from Manhattan. NJ had proven a more than viable option for professional sports teams, as it was just a short train ride away to the new Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Garden was in need of renovation, so they made then mayor Ed Koch an ultimatum - give us a tax break to help us renovate the arena and add the new fangled luxury boxes that all the newer arenas had. That led to a full property tax exemption for the next 10 years.
Koch ‘didn’t realize’ that no one put in a sunset date for the tax exemption. Some think he confused the clause that stated the teams would be locked in for at least 10 more years, for a clause that said the tax exemption would only last for 10 more years. The first part of that is true, so interestingly enough the Knicks and Rangers are not allowed to play home games anywhere else but MSG, or they would break the agreement, so things like the NHL winter classic that the Rangers play in, even if in NY they have to be the away team. Knicks in London? Away team. Not that those teams would give up a home games worth of revenue, but still they technically have to be the away team. So the garden has saved somewhere around half a billion dollars, yes BILLION dollars in property tax payments. It’s around $50 Million now, and although there have been bills, most notably in 2014 to try and get this changed, so far it’s fallen on deaf ears.
The argument against this is pretty plain to see, the Knicks and the Rangers are the most profitable teams in their respective sports, and that they don’t need this tax break. Let’s make one thing clear, Jim Dolan definitely does NOT need the tax break. Everyone has to pay property taxes. Except, Dolan and MSG. It’s a hard pill to swallow, even as the most diehard Knicks fan. The City Council almost unanimously voted to take it to state legislature in 2014, which has authority over the cities tax rules. There is sketchy stuff all through this, like state assembly leader at the time Sheldon Silver having his daughter and one of his former top aides on MSG payroll. Oh yeah, Sheldon Silver was convicted of federal fraud and extortion charges sometime after that focused on large payments that Silver received for years from Goldberg & Iryami, a law firm that specialized in seeking reductions of New York City real estate taxes for real estate developers. Silver was alleged to have persuaded developers who had business with the state to use the firm, which in turn generated $700,000 in referral fees to Silver. Totally not sketchy at all.
Here’s where it stands today, as controversy will be back to a fever pitch in a few years.
In 2013, the NYC council voted unanimously to give MSG a ten year permit, as opposed to their current agreement which gave them operating rights in perpetuity. This means that MSG’s operating permit is up in 2023. Penn Station is in dire need of renovation. Like, more-so than the Knicks are in need of talent. Dolan also spent a couple billion on renovating the arena into the state of the art facility it is today. He’s not planning on moving it. If the city wants Dolan to move the garden so they can renovate the station, it would be massively complicated, and the city would be forced to offer huge subsidies to get MSG out of the way. So chances are, everything goes on, status quo. Now I will say, from my time receiving internal emails at MSG, Dolan does not want a fight with the city. They realize that there can potentially be a compromise here. Also, he has a ton of money, and politicians tend to respond to that.
One thing that is a step in the right direction, is the massive building across 8th avenue, the iconic post office, which just like the old Penn Station has gone largely unused but BECAUSE of Penn Stations demolition has been protected itself from demolition. It has already begun to be repurposed for the train station, and by 2021 they are supposed to finish the construction on the inside to a huge, new, modern train hub. This will do a lot honestly in reducing the congestion in the old underground station.
The other internal rumblings, were that Dolan was going to let them build into the theater. Cuomo actually announced this plan, which would leave the arena intact. I will explain the layout of the current building later, but underneath the arena floor up on the 5th floor, sits the 2nd largest theater in all of NYC. In my time there it was being used less and less, mostly because the garden also owns Radio City and The Beacon theater, which are much nicer venues. There have been iconic events down in the theater also, including many NBA drafts, and some epic Eddie Murphy stand up specials, but it is in need of renovation. It is the only area that they didn’t touch during the renovation, because the thought process is that they’d just be competing with themselves in Radio and The Beacon. So The idea is that Dolan will throw the city a bone, and let them build up into the theater, in exchange for keeping the status quo, which would give Penn a much larger footprint. Admittedly, I’m not sure what progress has gone into this plan, and if the Amtrak plan for the post office has changed any of that. Basically, we’re just going to have to wait until 2023 to see what the future really holds for MSG, but knowing a bit about NYC politics, I wouldn’t count on anything changing.
Ok, now that that’s all out of the way, lets talk about the fun side of MSG4, if it hasn’t already left too sour of a taste in your collective mouths.
The new building is actually a pretty fascinating piece of architecture in its own right. Some people think the facade is ugly, and that’s fair, but the inner workings are pretty cool. Charles Luckman was the architect, and he also designed the Forum out in LA, owned now by MSG as well. In my opinion, the most fascinating part of the structure is the cable system which supports it. 48 cables connect from the outer circumference of the building, meeting at the middle in a center tension ring. This allows the arena to not have visual support beams, like the arenas before it all boasted. No visual beams means better sight lines, and less obstructions. This is a cool article from the time about it if you care to know more about the actual construction. If you’re ever at The Garden, look for little circular plaques on the wall, numbered 1-48. These mark where the cables line up in the arena, and security can actually use these to dictate where they are in the building. You’ll probably never notice them, unless you’re looking for them.
The other cool thing about the roof, is that if you look closely you’ll see that the actual ceiling which sits between the cables, you’ll see that it has tiny holes all through it. Thats because the ceiling is designed to absorb sound, its filled with sound absorption material so when the sound passes through the holes it helps deaden the room. Usually arenas are the worst place to see a concert, and the general rule of thumb is - the bigger the room, the louder and boomier it will be. It’s certainly not as good sounding as a smaller concert venue but it is better than any arena you’ll find. As opposed to oracle arena, which has a concrete ceiling meant to amplify sound for sporting events etc. Which makes it even more impressive how loud it gets in there, despite the ceilings best efforts.
When the building was built there was a 48 lane bowling alley, an art gallery, a hall of fame, and a 501 seat cinema. Thats right, a 48 lane bowling alley. It closed in the 80s, but had a lot of bowling events including some sort of bowling TV show apparently. I haven’t been able to confirm this, but this was what I was told by a reliable source! Someone older than myself can probably speak to that.
Unlike most arenas, the arena floor of MSG is actually 5 floors above street level, which allows for the theater underneath the arena floor.
Although the Felt Forum Theater at Madison Square Garden doesn’t have as many events as it used to, they still have events and even at the same time that there are events going on up in the main arena. When I was working there, we had plenty of instances where there were crazy concerts or games going on upstairs, and other events going on in the theater. You would have never known the other was going on, and there is no sound transmitted from one venue to the other. Also if you’re familiar with the theater, the rumor is the lights (probably its defining characteristic) that pattern the theater ceiling, equates exactly to the number of seats in the theater. I never was bored enough to count, so that’ll just have to be a rumor for now!
The floor of the arena itself is pretty cool, and if you’re not familiar with how these multi-sport arenas work, the ice lives underneath the court all through hockey and basketball season. It’s pretty remarkable to watch the ice crew make the ice, and pretty sad when it gets melted. The fun fact here is, not only can they switch over in under 3 hours from one sport to the other, but they WILL do it and have to do it several times a year to do a Knicks and Rangers home game on the same day. All four sides of the arena have expandable seating, think high school gym, which allows for almost 2 thousand more seats during Knicks games as opposed to rangers games. They cover the ice with a fiberglass/plastic compound material, and then the floor fits together like a giant puzzle over top of the material. This current material has been used since the renovation, and the ridiculous thing is before the new material, supposedly they had to melt the ice once during the season - to accommodate for the longest running event in MSG history, the dog show. Apparently the dogs could sense the ice! I wasn’t there at that time, but that was what I was told was the scenario.
Another ridiculous thing is seeing them set up for professional bull riding. It’s insane, they bring in literally 20 something dump trucks of dirt and they do a ‘running of the bulls’ where all the bulls run up the ramp that goes to the street, and into their pens. It’s probably the wildest thing you’ll see being set up there, and also leaves the arena smelling like, well, you know, for several weeks. Not as bad as it smells after Phish comes through for NYE, and no I’m not talking about reefer. That would be one thing, but it just smells…grimy.
As much as we all collectively have some disdain for James Dolan, it hasn’t been all bad. He has hosted 3 of the biggest benifit concerts of all time, for 9/11, Katrina, and Sandy. All the proceeds from these shows went towards victim relief. But what people don’t realize is that the first ever benefit concert happened at MSG, in George Harrison’s ‘The Concert For Bangladesh’.
As for the new renovation, they really did a nice job in a lot of ways. It took 3 years, from 2011-13. First of all, if you’ve never sat on the bridge for a game, do it. It’s truly a one of a kind view. If you’re not familiar with the bridge, they are 2 suspended walkways that were added during the renovation, with several rows of seating that stretch across the arena. One side is the ‘Media bridge’ where there are TV’s with full cable, all kinds of plugs for laptops and internet and all that. They will sell tickets to this side when it’s a game that the media isn’t hogging the whole thing. I like hanging up there during games because there are advanced stats on some of the channels, anything you would need to be covering the game from a journalistic perspective, so it’s pretty cool. Also that’s where the radio, and the hockey TV broadcast booths are, since the vantage point is better up there for hockey than on the glass.
Pro tip - sometimes on stub hub or wherever, those seats can be cheaper than the ones further back not on the bridge. This is because they’re the ‘300’ level, where as the seats all the way up on the sides are the 200 level. However there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. And there are bars INSIDE the seating area, so if you’re up in the top of the 200’s, you can hit the bar without ever leaving the arena bowl and missing a single second of that can’t miss Knicks basketball. The 400 level is cool too, that’s the blue seats, which were the original color of all the 400 level seats.
Back in the day, when there were paper tickets, the seats in the different levels were different colors, and the tickets for those seats would be the same color as your seats!
The suite situation is very insane now a days. There are the event level suites, which are 20 suites located literally on the arena floor, underneath the seating. They have no view of the game, but they come with 8 seats each right in the first few rows. It’s the best of both worlds, so you’ll see the first few rows CLEAR OUT during half time to go into their little luxury caves. There are also suites all through the mid level of the arena, and then a 3rd level of suites up on the 9th floor, facing the stage.
There are also luxury clubs, including the Delta Club, which if you’ve never had a ticket with access to it, and can afford it - I highly recommend it. Everything (minus alcohol of course!) is free, and the food is honestly ridiculous. Further down the hall and down the stairs is the JP Morgan club (throwback!) where an even more elite club (closest 100 or so seats) can hang out. And even more so, there is a place called ‘suite 200’. I never knew about this until I worked there. You can only go there if you’re invited, which means you’re very famous. For some reason, my keycard had access to this, and I explored it a few times. It’s ridiculous. Original trophies, huge original paintings, etc.
Speaking of trophies - everyone used to ask me where the Knicks championship trophies are - and the truth is, back when the Knicks won it was so long ago, that the NBA trophy was like the Stanley cup and changed hands every year. So…no Knicks championship trophies. However if you go to MSG you’ll notice the defining moments collection, the top moments in MSG history that line the walls of the 2 main concourses. There is one dedicated to the 1970 championship, and it has the eastern conference trophy in it. Now this I can confirm is true - if you examine the trophy you’ll notice that the little basketball player on top is a different hue than the rest of the trophy. That’s because apparently when they were compiling these displays a few years ago, they found the trophy in storage with the basketball man broken off the top of it, so they had to replace it. That’s why you can visibly tell that there is a difference between him and the rest of the trophy, if you really examine it.
Obviously there have been so many huge events at The Garden, I don’t really need to get into that here.
Also if you ever get the chance, visit the 9th floor where the signature suites are located. The coolest memorabilia in the building is up there, including one of those signed 50 greatest lithographs, Patrick Ewing and Wayne Gretzky’s locker, and even the statue of Joe Gans, a legendary African American boxer. This statue has the patina pretty much gone from his outstretched left arm is it was tradition for boxers to tap gloves with Joe for good luck before they took the ring. Now it sits up there, right next to the scale that was in use during the time of the fight of the century featuring Frazier and Ali. They also have an old school ice resurfacer up there, which is pretty cool.
Well, I’m sure there’s a ton that I left out - If you made it this far, you’re a champ.
TL;DR - Boston Garden was originally called Boston Madison Square Garden and was named after the arena in NY. There is only one 'The Garden' and it's super duper important. ;)
Edit - I should have mentioned wrestling. It’s intimately tied to MSG, but really deserves its own thread and I have no more characters!
submitted by JiveChain to nba [link] [comments]

[ANNOUNCEMENT] Earl Sweatshirt 2019 - FIRE IT UP! Tour Dates and Venues

FT. BBYMUTHA, NA-KEL SMITH, LIV.E, MIKE & BLACK NOI$E
Presale: Thursday, January 30th, 2019 at 10 AM Local
Onsale: Friday, February 1st, 2019 at 10 AM Local
Venues and Dates listed below:
03/23 New Orleans, LA - BUKU Music + Art Project
03/25 Charlotte, NC - The Underground at the Fillmore Charlotte
03/26 Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore Silver Spring
03/28 Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage
03/29 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts
03/30 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
03/31 Providence, RI - Fête Music Hall
04/02 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
04/04 Montreal, Quebec - Corona Theatre
04/05 Toronto, Ontario - The Phoenix Concert Theatre
04/07 Detroit, MI - Saint Andrews Hall
04/09 Minneapolis, MN - Cabooze
04/10 Lawrence, KS - The Granada
04/11 Denver, CO - Cervantes Masterpiece
04/14 Seattle, WA - The Showbox
04/15 Vancouver, British Columbia - The Commodore Ballroom
04/16 Portland OR - Crystal Ballroom
04/18 Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades
04/19 San Francisco, CA - Regency Ballroom
04/20 Santa Cruz, CA - The Catalyst
04/21 San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theater
04/23 Pomona, CA - The Glass House
04/24 Los Angeles, CA - The Novo
04/26 Las Vegas, NV - Vinyl - Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas
04/27 San Diego, CA - SOMA
04/28 Phoenix, AZ - Club Red
05/01 Austin, TX - Emo’s
05/02 Dallas, TX - Canton Hall
05/04 Houston, TX - Warehouse Live
05/05 Birmingham, AL - Saturn
05/06 Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade
06/07 London, England - Meridian Water (Field Day Festival 2019)
submitted by RaptorDelta to hiphopheads [link] [comments]

Inside Boston underground Poker Part 1

Seeing as the NY underground poker posts have been so popular, I figure I can give a bit of a different perspective on the underground scene of the mid 2000s. The Boston scene wasn't nearly as big as the NY scene, but there were still some big games and wild characters involved. I started off in small college games, so if you're only interested in the big mob associated games and stuff like that, this first part will probably bore you. I'm not going to bother changing names in the story. If you knew me from that time, it'll be obvious pretty early on who I am.
Back in 2005 I headed out from California to Boston for college. I'm still not sure why I was so set on going to school in Boston over the beautiful California schools that I had been accepted to, but there I was. Facebook was a really new thing at the time, and you needed a college email address to sign up. As soon as I got my college email in about April, I signed up for Facebook and added every cute girl who was living in the same dorm as me. I also signed up for a bunch of Facebook groups, several about poker games around the campus.
The Moneymaker effect was in full swing at this point, and I had an edge. My best friend at the time's dad had taught us poker when we were 14 or so. We got started playing mixed games, I loved 7 stud variants, but over time we transitioned to NLH. When I left for college I had been a regular in a $0.50/1 NLH game at a house in a rich area that played pretty big, and I had been winning regularly. Between that game and playing online, I had turned $200 I had made from my after school job into a $1500 bankroll.
So I arrive in Boston in August and start going to various games. One was in a nook in the school library, a weekly $50 tournament with no rake, unlimited rebuys and insane players. One was in a frat house with a bunch of drunk bros. Then I found Stevo's game. I think Stevo was a senior at that point, he lived in off campus housing, and he had a professional quality poker table in a side room of his apartment. Besides the nice table and personalized "Stevo's Card Room" chips, what set the game apart for me was that it was the first private game I had played in with a dealer, Erik.
I introduced myself to the other players by my real name, but as became my trademark, people knew me better by my card protector. Bubbles She came from a cake my friends had gotten me for my 17th birthday as a joke, and since her base was perfect for sitting on cards, she became my card protector. I knew some of the guys in the Boston scene for 3 years, and many never knew my real name, they simply knew me as Bubbles.
Stevo's was $1/2 NLH with 75% stack match if I remember correctly. So if the big stack on the table had $1600, you could buy in $1200. The game played pretty deep, and with the same players most nights. Many of them had been playing together for a couple of years, so they knew each other well. The first night I went, me and this other guy Chris were the only freshmen there. It turned out we lived 1 floor apart in our dorm, and we became fast friends.
I bought in for the $300 I had brought with me (lolbankroll) and played my normal, pretty tight style. There were a few crazy bluffers on the table, but one guy Phil really stood out for how often he'd try to steal pots. I played some small pots and was up to around $400 when I looked down at AA. Phil raised $8 from EP, I 3b from late position up to $25 and Phil called. The flop came unsuited low cards and Phil bet $30, I raised to $90 and Phil called. The turn came an 8s which brought a flush draw and Phil checked, I shoved and Phil went into the tank. He flipped up KJss and said he thought I had TT or 99 and so he had lots of outs with his 2 overs and flush draw. He asked me if I wanted him to call and I said absolutely. He eventually called and nailed his flush on the river. I headed to the nearest ATM and bought back into the game. I eventually left with about $500 for a $100 loss on the night, but I was hooked. The action was crazy, I had gotten it in great for an $800 pot and lost, and still only lost $100? I was going to make so much money!
The game ran twice a week, and I was always there. I still played in some random other games, but Stevo's was my main hangout. I became pretty good friends with some of the guys, including Stevo and Chris. Chris and I would regularly skip classes to play on Full Tilt all day. Often on Sundays about 5 of us would go to Stevo's place and grind Party Poker, especially when they had their monthly Party Millions tournament. One Sunday I was playing in a huge $50 online tourney on Party, and ended up going all the way and winning it for $22k. Suddenly I had a great big bankroll! I was consistently winning at Stevo's game, and I had picked up a crazy tell on Phil, the big bluffer. When I left Boston for good 3 years later, I'd finally explain to Phil how I had made so much money off of him, picking off so many of his bluffs he'd made against me. Whenever Phil would make a big bluff with nothing, he'd ask his bet as a question. "300?" He'd say, as if asking "is 300 enough to buy this pot?". I made thousands off of this tell.
As time went on, I wanted more than just 2 nights a week of poker at Stevo's and the crappy other games around campus. Phil had mentioned that they would sometimes go to a game in Chinatown, so one day I asked if he'd take me along.
The Chinatown game ran in an apartment unit above, what else, a Chinese restaurant. It was run by a guy named Jay, who seemed pretty nice, but had a temper at times, and people said was connected to the Triad. Apparently Jay knew the game would eventually get broken up by the cops, but he figured he'd get a few years in prison, but the $500k he planned on making from the game before then would be worth it.
The Chinatown game had 5 tables if I remember correctly. They'd have a tournament at 6pm on most nights, and then a cash game would start around 7 from the people busting the tourney as well as others who came just for cash. At first you could just walk in as long as someone went and introduced you to Jay and vouched for you. They had big screen TVs all over the walls, constantly playing High Stakes Poker, they had food delivered in for the players, fridges full of beer and soft drinks, it was great. Eventually the game would get robbed (although some claimed they thought it was a setup by Jay), and a steel door with an electronic bolt and a security camera would be added.
The game itself was a $1/3nl game with $500 max buyin. It played extremely loose, and I started coming by nearly every night. The players were a mix from all walks of life. Since it was an underground room, there was no age restriction, so some rich high school kids were even in the games. There were tons of college students of course. The Harvard kids always thought they were hot shit, but they always seemed to want to be the table bullies, and I'd pick off their bluffs. The MIT kids were another story, they were nothing short of geniuses, and I tried to stay out of their way usually.
I got a reputation for hitting and running the game, because my goal was to make $1000 and then quit for the night. Often when I'd quit early, me, Jay and some of the others guys would play board games for cash or weird random poker variants. I was making a killing in this game. I went out and bought myself a BMW, I was taking girls from the dorms out to $100 a plate dinners, I thought I was the man. It was 2nd semester, early 2006, and I was also failing out of school. I managed to scrape by first semester with a 2.5, already putting me on probation for my academic scholarship, but I didn't care. I called my mom and told her I was going to make more money than her in 2006.
2nd semester, Chris and I had signed up for many of the same classes with the idea that we'd force each other to go, but instead we enabled each other to skip. One Wednesday morning we were supposed to be going to class, and I don't remember who suggested it, but we ended up instead driving up to Montreal for a 5 day weekend. I got a speeding ticket going 95 MPH through Vermont on the way there, Chris got a ticket driving back through Vermont on the way home, but overall it was a great trip. We played some poker at the casino up there, and I made a few hundred bucks which we blew at the bars and clubs.
A few months after the robbery, the Chinatown game got raided by Boston Vice Squad. Apparently having regular cops there didn't help us out any, they had their money taken along with anyone else there. Jay was arrested, but all of the dealers and players were let go after a bit of harassment. Luckily for me, despite being there about 6 nights a week, I wasn't there for the robbery or the bust. However, unluckily my favorite game and my cash cow was gone.
Now I was back to just 2 days a week at Stevo's. I had met a guy named Rich through the Chinatown game, he was often a dealer there but would also play sometimes. Rich hit me up one day and asked if I was looking for another regular game. I told him I was, and got an invite to a game called The Loft. The Loft was a game outside of Boston in Chelsea. It was in an upscale loft and run by a guy named Moon. Moon was a total character. He was probably around 30, had been an engineer for GE, but quit because he rejected the idea of paying taxes. Moon was a conspiracy nut, and as we became friends he'd tell me all kinds of crazy theories, often involving Jews. As a Jew myself, I told him I was sure upset that all of these fun Jewish conspiracies were happening without me!
The Loft was a good game, but not as juicy as the Chinatown game. There were 2 tables, but usually just 1 ran, and it was often the same people every day. Many of them sucked at poker, so I was still making a bunch of money, but some of the shine had worn off. I completely stopped going to classes around this time, but was still living in the dorms and joined a fraternity. This frat was famous for crazy parties, and we'd sell cups for $5 at the door as admission. Eventually a party got busted up by the cops, and the frat president and a few other guys got arrested for selling alcohol to minors. The mayor of Boston went on TV and made an example out of us, calling us the negative Animal House version of a fraternity and calling for harsher regulations for serving alcohol to minors. The national fraternity revoked our charter, and that was the end of that.
The school year was coming to a close, and I was supposed to go home for the summer. I was done at the university, and didn't really know what I was going to do the next year. I drove the BMW all the way home to California and then went with a bunch of friends to Europe for the World Cup. We spent 5 weeks there, went to the 3 US games, and had a great time. I played some PLO in Barcelona despite not really knowing how to play (that was the only game they had there at the time), and I won $1200 by playing no hands for hours until I hit a full house, then getting paid off by the maniac players. When we stopped in Paris I played at the Aviation Club, the swanky poker club a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees. They told me I couldn't come in wearing tennis shoes, so I went across the street and bought $200 loafers at Lacoste, then proceeded to win $5000 over the course of a crazy 24 hour session. My total expenses for the trip were $5500, and I had made $6200 in poker during the trip, life was amazing!
I ended up deciding to sign up for a program where you spend a year in Israel, get some college credits and volunteer. I ended up doing more drinking and partying than volunteering and studying, and got kicked out of the program halfway through.
I came back to California and went to community college for the semester, before deciding I missed the grind and that I was going to move back to Boston for the 2007-2008 school year and go to community college there (yeah right) but mostly get back to the underground poker grind. I had just turned 20, had about $80k and the BMW, and I was ready to jump back in. I talked to Rich, the guy who had gotten me into the Loft game, and he was still dealing poker around town and was looking for a roommate. I told him I was driving out to Boston the next week from California, and that he should find a 2 bedroom for us near campus. Little did I know, Rich was not to be trusted, and I was in for a shitshow of a year...
Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/pokecomments/bfvdp3/inside_boston_underground_poker_part_2/?
submitted by robswins to poker [link] [comments]

underground casino boston video

Are You On Board? Sign up for what interests YOU most: news, free fun, volunteer opportunities, or all of the above! Encore Boston Harbor is now offering free self-parking daily. On weekends and holidays, we recommend visitors use our free Encore shuttles from the Malden or Wellington MBTA stations, or park at Encore's Rivergreen facility in Everett and take our free Neighborhood Runner shuttle which runs 7 days-a-week. Underground Poker Boston, borderlands 2 slot machine coop, party poker deportes, tax on gambling winnings in michigan A recent report in the Boston Globe offers a tantalizing glimpse at the future resort casino, which is scheduled to open June 24, 2019. “On Monday, workers were pouring concrete for the top floor of the four-level underground parking garage, designed to hold some 3,000 cars. Casino. South Boston, Boston. Save. Share. Tips; Southie Underground Poker. Related Searches. southie underground poker boston • southie underground poker boston photos • southie underground poker boston location • southie underground poker boston address • southie underground poker boston • southie underground poker boston • Celebrate Black History Month in Boston. It's February, and with it comes Black History Month, an opportunity to celebrate the rich and integral role that African Americans have played in the ongoing story of America. Within this tale, Boston has produced many unique chapters and characters, from Lewis Hayden to Lewis Latimer, Phillis Underground Poker Boston, sc slot hp 840, poker in north devon, huuuge casino glitch See 8 photos from 195 visitors to Underground Casino & Pub, Cyberjaya. The seedy atmosphere at an underground Texas casino chronicled last year by the New York Times is typical, But the Rev. Richard McGowan, a professor of finance at Boston College and expert on gambling, says that in the United States at least, the biggest reason is the shift of public attitudes about betting that has occurred in recent 2nd Biggest Casino / Gaming Facility in Massachusetts. Coming in second place for largest casino in Massachusetts is Encore Boston Harbor with 2800 gaming machines and 166 table games. This casino can be reached by calling (857) 770-7000 or by clicking this link: Encore Boston Harbor to see its information page.

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