Madison Square Research Articles

Using Hyperlocal Projects to Teach Entrepreneurial Skills

This article presents a comprehensive exploration of employing hyperlocal projects as a pedagogical approach to teach entrepreneurship. Hyperlocal projects entail focusing on specific, localized communities to address real-world business challenges and opportunities. The study emphasizes the significance of integrating hyperlocal projects into entrepreneurship curricula, offering educators innovative methods to engage students and cultivate essential entrepreneurial skills. The paper outlines the implementation of the Madison Square Business Association project at Grand Valley State University, where students collaborated with a local non-profit to support businesses within a designated area. Through extensive data collection and collaboration with businesses, students developed persona descriptions, identified critical business issues, and proposed tailored support services. The project spanned two semesters, allowing students to iteratively refine their solutions and engage with local stakeholders. Key findings highlight the benefits of hyperlocal projects in entrepreneurship education. These projects foster critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills by immersing students in real-world business contexts. Moreover, hyperlocal projects facilitate community engagement, providing students with hands-on learning experiences while addressing local economic challenges. The article also offers practical insights into the implementation of hyperlocal projects, including strategies for project planning, stakeholder engagement, and assessment. Furthermore, it discusses the implications of hyperlocal projects for future research, emphasizing the need for long-term outcome evaluations, examinations of their impact on underserved populations, comparative analyses with other educational methods, and exploration of cross-disciplinary applications. Overall, this study underscores the value of hyperlocal projects in entrepreneurship education, encouraging educators to embrace innovative teaching approaches that promote real-world problem-solving and community engagement. By incorporating hyperlocal projects into curricula, institutions can empower students to become entrepreneurial leaders equipped to drive local economic development and social change.

Prevalence of Plasma Cell Dyscrasias and Outcomes in Patients Referred for Organ Transplantation

Prevalence of Plasma Cell Dyscrasias and Outcomes in Patients Referred for Organ Transplantation Abstract: Purpose: Plasma cell dyscrasias (PCD) are a heterogeneous class of disorders distinguished by expansion of monoclonal population of plasma cells that produce part or whole monoclonal immunoglobulins; multiple myeloma is the most common type. Solid organ disease can be related to plasma cell dyscrasias. Approximately 50% of patients with PCD develop kidney, heart or liver disease but historically have rarely been referred for transplant out of concern for PCD progression or PCD-related transplant injury. Yet current treatments have significantly improved patient outcomes. Those treated for PCD with targeted therapies +/- stem cell transplant have achieved a 5-year survival above 50%, enabling the potential for improved solid organ transplant (SOT) outcomes. Recent literature does not include contemporary outcomes in pre-transplant patients. Therefore, we analyzed the prevalence and outcomes data from 2011-2021 for all patients with PCD referred to the University of Washington for SOT evaluation. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of patients with PCD referred to the University of Washington for SOT between January 2011 and December 2021. We characterized the patient population by PCD and SOT type. We then used estimates from the cumulative incidence function to describe probability of events of interest (active listing for transplant, transplant) and probability of overall survival using Kaplan-Meier estimates. Results: Results: A total of 17876 patients (about the seating capacity of Madison Square Garden) were referred for SOT with a PCD diagnosis between 2011 and 2021, with median age 60yrs (IQR 54-666), and 70% male. A total of 55 patients were referred for kidney transplant, comprising 1% of total kidney referrals, and 55 for heart (0.8% of total heart referrals). There was an average increase in 0.6 patients referred per year (p=0.05) for kidney transplants and 0.1 patients per year (p=0.62) for other organ transplants. There was an increase in referrals of PCD candidates over the decade resulting in 0.40 (95% CI: 0.27-0.53) 3-year cumulative incidence of waitlisting for kidney transplant, and a 0.32 (95% CI: 0.16-0.48) 5-year cumulative incidence of kidney transplantation. Survival of patients with PCD referred for kidney and all other organ transplants combined progressively worsened over time - those referred for kidney transplant had a better survival (88.3% at 2 years, 95% CI: 79.9-97.6, and 67.9% at 6 years, 95% CI: 53.7-86.0) than all other organs (80.0% at 2 years, 95% CI: 64.3-99.6, and 56.6% at 6 years, 95% CI: 37.7-85.0). Conclusions: There has been an increase in referrals for patients with PCD over the last 10 years in the setting of improved PCD therapies and pre-transplant outcomes. The probability of waitlisting and transplantation is similar to non-PCD patients at University of Washington. The probability of survival after transplant referral is similar to non-PCD patients for kidney and all other SOT candidates. Our findings highlight the increased need for, and opportunity to provide organ transplants for SOT candidates surviving after PCD treatment. Further research is needed to understand the optimal timing of transplant with chronic immunosuppression in the setting of PCD and contemporary therapies.

The Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike

The Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike

A Face Only an Attorney Could Love: Madison Square Garden’s Use of Facial Recognition Technology to Ban Lawyers with Pending Litigation

A Face Only an Attorney Could Love: Madison Square Garden’s Use of Facial Recognition Technology to Ban Lawyers with Pending Litigation

The Price

The Price

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

ANTI‐FASCISM AND FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS: ERNST TOLLER'S QUEENS COLLEGE AFFAIR1

ABSTRACTThe countless public speeches Ernst Toller gave during his six‐year exile from Nazi Germany included a particularly controversial one in 1938 at the newly founded Queens College, in New York City. The controversy stemmed from the fact that it almost did not take place: two days after receiving what he understood to be an invitation to speak at a symposium, Toller learned that the college could not host him after all because of his well‐known anti‐Nazi stance and the danger that it might offend German‐Americans throughout the borough of Queens. Eventually the college heeded widespread criticism, including in the New York press, and Toller did address the college audience. This article compares Toller's ‘Queens College affair’ to other examples of the collision between fascism, anti‐fascism, and free speech in New York City in the 1930s, including the German‐American ‘Bund’ rally at Madison Square Garden in February 1939. The article considers what bearing these historical controversies have on current debates about free speech, including on college campuses.

At-Home Humbugs: Freaks and Fakes in the Nineteenth-Century Parlor Museum

In April 1885, a New York Herald journalist rushed to Madison Square Garden for a special reception highlighting Jo-Jo, the Dog-Faced Boy. A feature of P. T. Barnum's traveling show, Jo-Jo was confounding scientists who had requested a stand-alone inspection of the mysterious attraction. Accordingly, the reporter provided an anthropological description of the boy: “He stands about five feet high. . . . His whole body is covered by a very thick growth of long, tow colored hair . . . and the peculiar formation of his head [is] very suggestive of the Russian dachshund.” At first, Jo-Jo appeared docile, but as the scientists prodded him more and more, he started “snarling, showing his three canine teeth” and asked his guardian if he could bite the inspectors. Jo-Jo was decidedly not a dog-boy, or not exactly. He was, in fact, a Russian teenager suffering from hypertrichosis, a condition causing excessive hair growth all over the body, including nearly every surface area of the face. Barnum had signed him to perform a year earlier, and the boy made quite an auspicious debut. However, Jo-Jo was simply the latest in a long line of supposed hybrid species and exotic curiosities that Barnum had been displaying since midcentury. The famed showman built his name in part by presenting human creation itself as a continual spectrum. Barnum's attractions ranged from live tigers and giraffes to enigmatic simian performers to wax statues of America's degraded lower classes. As much of a draw as he became, even Jo-Jo had to share a bill with Tattooed Hindoo Dwarfs, Hungarian Gypsies, Buddhist Priests, as well as a menagerie of animals including baby elephants, kangaroos, lions, and twenty-foot-long “great sinewy serpents.” But Jo-Jo's specific appeal was tied to his inexplicability. Even given the closer inspection of the dog-faced boy, “none of the physicians present would hazard an opinion as to his ancestry.”

Sugar-sweetened beverage purchases and intake at event arenas with and without a portion size cap

This is the first real-world study to examine the association between a voluntary 16-ounce (oz) portion-size cap on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) at a sporting arena on volume of SSBs and food calories purchased and consumed during basketball games. Cross-sectional survey data from adults exiting a Brooklyn, NY, USA arena (Barclays, n = 464) with a 16-oz portion-size restriction and a Manhattan, NY, USA arena with no portion-size restriction (Madison Square Garden, control, n = 295) after the portion cap policy was put in place from March through June 2014 were analyzed. Linear regression models adjusting for sex, age, BMI, ethnicity, race, marital status, education, and income were used to compare the two arenas during the post-implementation period. The survey response rate was 45.9% and equivalent between venues. Among all arena goers, participants at Barclays purchased significantly fewer SSB oz (−2.24 oz, 95% CI [−3.95, −0.53], p = .010) and consumed significantly fewer SSB oz (−2.34 oz, 95% CI[−4.01, −0.68], p = .006) compared with MSG after adjusting for covariates. Among those buying at least one SSB, Barclays’ participants purchased on average 11.03 fewer SSB oz. (95% CI = [4.86, 17.21], p < .001) and consumed 12.10 fewer SSB oz (95% CI = [5.78, 18.42], p < .001). There were no statistically significant differences between arenas in food calories and event satisfaction. In addition, no one reported not ordering a drink due to small size. An SSB portion-size cap was associated with purchasing and consuming fewer SSB oz. without evidence of decreasing satisfaction with the event experience.

Shake Shack IPO Analysis

The restaurant industry is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the economy in the United States. According to the National Restaurant Association (NRA), the food service industry is the third largest industry accounting for more than 4% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Shake Shack is an American fast food restaurant chain based in New York City. It started out as a food cart at Madison Square Park in 2000, and its popularity grew steadily. Shake Shack is currently one of the best fast-food restaurants in the world. This article discusses the successful business model of Shake Shack through IPO analysis.

Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck

<i>Mad at the World: A Life of John Steinbeck</i>

On the Record: Sissieretta Jones and Black Feminist Recording Praxes

In this article, I examine how Sissieretta Jones (frequently described as America’s first Black superstar, among other superlatives) strategically leveraged her European performance reviews in order to increase her listenership and wages in the United States. Jones toured Europe for the first (and only) time from February until November in 1895. According to clippings that she provided to African American newspapers, the singer performed at the renowned Winter Garden in Berlin for three months. Sissieretta Jones also claimed that she performed for Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, at his palace and was subsequently presented with an elaborate diamond brooch for her performance. Afterward, the singer told the African American newspaper the Indianapolis Freeman that she would like to live in Europe permanently. Her biographers frequently cite the success of this trip and its symbolic importance for African Americans. And yet, evidence of these events in the archives of major German newspapers is elusive and contradictory at best, if it exists at all. Nevertheless, after the much-hyped tour, her career would take many twists and turns. Sissieretta Jones eventually performed in venues like Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. She was the highest-paid Black female performer of the nineteenth century and a role model for future generations of Black performers.

O. Henry’s A Madison Square Arabian Night: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue

In this paper, the assertion of cross-culture in the American literature is studied and put for discussion. Aside from the inspiration of the American writers of the Arabian Nights, the inspiration of the Arabian Culture is inspired as well. O. Henry is given as an example in his short story “A Madison square Arabian Night”. The first part of this research is going to highlight the importance of the Arabian Nights in the American literature. It tries to give a brief idea about the Arabian nights and according to this it is divided into five parts to give enough information as possible about these nights. The first part includes the understanding of the Arabian nights from different perspectives those found in some encyclopaedias, like the Encyclopaedia Americana, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Encyclopaedia of Islam. For the necessity of historical background about the contents of the Arabian Nights, the paper deals with the authorship of the stories of the Arabian nights and the contents which includes a short summary of the story of the Arabian nights. A general idea about the origins of the thousand nights and a night is widely explained. The last part is dedicated to stereotype something about the influence of the Arabian nights on the other literatures. O. Henry wrote most of his major works in short story. Thus the short story is the most outstanding literary genre in this age and its explanation has a space in this paper in the sense that it gives a comparison between Baghdad and New York from O. Henry’s point of view. This paper deals with his major work A Madison Square Arabian Night since it is the work in which a very clear example of comparison between Baghdad and New York is composed. His thesis in this story reveals the cross-cultural dialogue and his tendency towards the orientalism.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture in Gilded Age New York

The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture in Gilded Age New York

“I Come from Georgia”: Andrew Cobb Erwin’s Southern Resistance to the Ku Klux Klan

Abstract During the 1924 Democratic National Convention, Will Rogers described the party’s deliberation on Saturday as “the day when I heard the most religion preached, and the least practiced of any day in the world’s history.” The Democrats had been debating over whether to officially condemn the Ku Klux Klan in the party platform. William Jennings Bryan ended his own address offering white supremacist support with an all-too-common appeal for the party to simply “return to Jesus” rather than condemn white supremacy. Among the flurry of religious rhetoric that week, one voice surprised the delegates. Just before Bryan, one son of a Confederate officer and former mayor of the Klan stronghold, Athens, Georgia, spoke. He looked small. His voice cracked. But when he spoke outside the stereotype of a Southern politician and against the KKK, Madison Square Garden erupted with both hisses and cheers. That day Andrew Cobb Erwin gave us a model of how to resist within a politically charged religious climate.

The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist by Julien Gorbach

Reviewed by: The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist by Julien Gorbach Rafael Medoff (bio) The Notorious Ben Hecht: Iconoclastic Writer and Militant Zionist. By Julien Gorbach. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2019. xxiii + 453 pp. Interwar Hollywood had more than its share of Jewish actors who changed their names and Jewish producers who steered clear of content that might draw attention to their ethnicity. In the early stages of his public career, Ben Hecht, the columnist, novelist and playwright turned screenwriter, seemed to be cut from the same cloth, or worse. His 1931 novel A Jew in Love was awash in stereotypes so grotesque that one prominent critic called the main character "the caricature of the anti-Semite come to life." In reality, Julien Gorbach contends in The Notorious Ben Hecht, he was just "parodying the un-Jewish Jew" (8). Not many people seemed to get the joke. "Outrage cascaded like an avalanche from some quarters of the American Jewish community," Gorbach reports. Rabbis in Cleveland declared they would never allow Hecht to be buried in their city. Hecht replied that he was not troubled to miss out on "an honor nobody I know has ever yearned for" (97). In fact, he seemed to revel in the tumult that his writings often provoked. So how did the iconoclast known for writing the scripts for such blockbusters as Gone With the Wind and The Front Page become a notorious Zionist militant? Hecht's transformation evidently had nothing to do with Judaism or Jewish culture, not his immigrant parents nor his boisterously ethnic extended family. He changed because the world had changed. Hecht looked around in 1939 and was horrified to see Jews around the world under siege and most American Jews seemingly hesitant to respond. Many had "discarded their Jewishness out of the belief that as Jews they could line up only for a snubbing," Hecht wrote (118). His instincts—honed as a gritty crime reporter on the streets of early 1900s Chicago—told him that the Jews needed to answer their persecutors with "a battle cry, rather than moans" (164). In this thoroughly-researched and finely-written study—the first comprehensive scholarly biography of Hecht—Gorbach adeptly chronicles the stages of Hecht's political evolution. It began with his decision to join the Fight for Freedom committee, which on the eve of World War II urged preemptive American military action against Nazi Germany. Polls showed the public overwhelmingly opposed to US involvement in Europe's conflicts, but Hecht never minded being in the minority. Using his dramatist's skills to make his case, Hecht created Fun to Be Free, a three-hour "Mammoth Revue" of patriotic songs, skits and speeches by [End Page 462] stars of Broadway and Hollywood, which played to capacity crowds at Madison Square Garden in 1941. When reports of the mass murder of Europe's Jews were confirmed in late 1942, Hecht joined the Bergson Group, a political action committee that sought to pressure the Roosevelt administration to aid Jewish refugees. Toward that end, he authored another dramatic spectacle at Madison Square Garden, We Will Never Die. The defiant title summed up Hecht's credo. Gorbach recounts Hecht's unsuccessful effort to coax a sympathetic message from the White House to read aloud at the event. The president and his aides feared that calling attention to the slaughter would increase the pressure to open America's doors. For Hecht, that episode was a bitter reminder that before rescuing Jews, he and his comrades first had to "rescue the word 'Jew' from the garbage can" (181). In their public statements about Nazi oppression in 1942–1943, President Roosevelt and other US officials mentioned refugees of various nationalities—but not Jews. Even a White House statement marking the first anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt failed to acknowledge that the fighters were Jews. Whether to focus on Jews or subsume their suffering among that of other oppressed peoples is a debate that did not end with World War II. Hecht addressed the problem the way he knew best—with his pen. In full-page advertisements with headlines such as "Time Races Death" and "They...

Lilith M. Wilson, Trailblazing Socialist Leader and Legislator

Lilith M. Wilson, Trailblazing Socialist Leader and Legislator Ian Gavigan (bio) Keywords Socialist Party of America, Pennsylvania, Lilith Wilson, Women and American Socialism Observers of pennsylvania's political scene might have noticed that in 2018, three socialist-affiliated women were elected to the state House of Representatives. What few observers likely know is that, eighty-eight years prior, an Indiana-born labor and socialist leader, Lilith Martin Wilson, became the first socialist woman, the fourteenth woman in general, and the first woman from Berks County elected to the general assembly.1 In 1930, the working people of Reading sent Wilson and Darlington Hoopes to Harrisburg, where they represented the energized and highly organized Reading socialist movement. Together, they pushed state politics to the left, even as their caucus constituted a miniscule legislative minority. Twice reelected, the pair left a mark on the state's politics few third-party politicians have achieved.2 Wilson, who came to Reading to be part of the city's socialist movement, had national prominence. She was, as the Inquirer put it, "an able speechmaker."3 Indeed, the former Rand School teacher, who sat on the party's National Executive Committee, was an active socialist campaigner, advocating for the movement from Reading to Madison Square Garden.4 In Pennsylvania, she was a leading socialist voice, also serving in multiple capacities in the local and state organizations. She was also the [End Page 378] first woman to receive any political party's nomination for governor in Pennsylvania; her 1922 candidacy garnered over thirty thousand votes.5 Unfortunately for anyone interested in Wilson, few primary sources by and about her remain. She died partway through her third legislative term and left no archive. A handful of her letters appear in the Darling-ton Hoopes Papers, held at Penn State, and references to her are numerous in correspondence housed in the Reading Labor Advocate papers, held by the Pennsylvania State Archives.6 They contain, however, little of substance. The collection containing the most Wilson-related materials is housed in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Archives. The house archives staff has compiled a useful biography of Wilson, as well as a collection of newspaper clippings and obituaries from Pennsylvania and across the country.7 The house archives also holds perhaps the most interesting archival document relating to Wilson: a copy of Socialism and Christianity, the transcript of a 1924 radio address.8 Printed as a pamphlet and sold for five cents by the local party, Socialism and Christianity is the most extensive, archivally accessible piece composed by Wilson. It offers a forceful synthesis of religion and socialism. In the piece, Wilson urged her audience of religious working people to embrace the socialist movement just as they embraced the gospel. Written in an energetic, learned, and accessible style, the address is a fascinating window onto Wilson's rhetoric, as well as working-class radio culture in the 1920s. Despite the limited record of Wilson's correspondence and writings, other materials show an impressive record in the assembly. She was an active and engaged legislator who, in concert with Hoopes, advanced ambitious labor and social legislation. The Darlington Hoopes Papers preserve a number of bills Wilson introduced during her three terms. She introduced and won house passage of a federal constitutional amendment outlawing child labor; she and Hoopes forced passage of unemployment insurance legislation in the house; and she introduced and twice passed [End Page 379] through the house constitutional amendments for old age pensions.9 Despite the limited archival record, Lilith Wilson must be remembered as a pioneering Pennsylvanian—a socialist woman who took to the airwaves, the streets, and the halls of power, fighting to her last days for freedom and justice. [End Page 380] Ian Gavigan Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Ian Gavigan Ian Gavigan is a PhD candidate in history at Rutgers–New Brunswick. His research has been supported by the Pennsylvania State Archives, the Duke University Human Rights Archive, the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State University, and the Department of History at Rutgers. He lives in Philadelphia and is a graduate of Haverford College. Footnotes 1. Michelle Goldberg, "The...

“May the Force Be With You”: Narendra Modi and the Celebritization of Indian Politics

Abstract“May the force be with you” were the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parting words as he ended his 2014 address to a rapturous crowd of Indian Americans in New York’s Madison square garden. Modi is the first PM to address the country through his own radio show, actively use social media, as well as technologies such as the 3D hologram. This article examines the ways in which Modi’s celebritized politics is strategically constructed and performed, honing in on Modi’s utilization of media, technology, and popular culture. It interrogates the processes such as the personalization of his political image through social media, the use of film stars to cultivate affect and allure by association, in constructing brand Modi.