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Sunnyside Garden Arena - Live Music Venue in New York

The Sunnyside Garden Arena (also known as Sunnyside Gardens) was an indoor boxing and wrestling arena at the southwest corner of Queens Boulevard and 45th Street in Sunnyside, Queens, New York City, US. Originally constructed in the 1920s as an indoor tennis court for the family of Jay Gould II, the building was converted to a fight venue and opened on April 8, 1947, with a seating capacity of app

Venue
Sunnyside Garden Arena
Town
New York, US

The Sunnyside Garden Arena (also known as Sunnyside Gardens) was an indoor boxing and wrestling arena at the southwest corner of Queens Boulevard and 45th Street in Sunnyside, Queens, New York City, US. Originally constructed in the 1920s as an indoor tennis court for the family of Jay Gould II, the building was converted to a fight venue and opened on April 8, 1947, with a seating capacity of approximately 2,500. Across three decades, the arena hosted regular professional boxing cards alongside wrestling, roller derby, and labor and political events, and was a recurring host of rounds of the Daily News-sponsored Golden Gloves amateur tournament. Fighters who appeared at the venue included Vito Antuofermo, Tony Canzoneri, Gerry Cooney, Emile Griffith, Floyd Patterson, and José Torres; both Cooney and Antuofermo made their professional debuts at the arena. The DuMont Television Network aired a weekly program from the venue, Boxing from Sunnyside Gardens, from September 1949 to 1950, and Sunnyside cards continued to appear on local New York stations into the 1960s. A 2000 New York Times retrospective described the arena, alongside Manhattan's St. Nicholas Arena, as one of the "old, small fight clubs where young boxers could learn their trade." The arena was the site of an October 1960 campaign address by presidential candidate John F. Kennedy before a crowd of 4,000 inside the building and 8,000 in the streets outside. The arena's last show was held on June 24, 1977, and the building was demolished that December. A Wendy's restaurant was subsequently constructed on the site. A memorial monument was installed in 2012, and in 2015 the New York City Council co-named the intersection of 45th Street and Queens Boulevard "Sunnyside Garden Arena Way". Sunnyside, a documentary film recounting the arena's history through interviews with former fighters and trainers, premiered in 2014. The arena was a red-brick building at 44-16 Queens Boulevard, two blocks from the 46th Street