was turned into a roadhouse under the direction of William "Corporal" Thompson (1807–1872), who later renamed it "Madison Cottage", after the former president. The roadhouse was the last stop for people traveling northward out of the city, or the first stop for those arriving from the north; visitors were encouraged not to sleep more than five to a bed. Though Madison Cottage itself was razed in 1852, it ultimately gave rise to the names for the adjacent avenue (Madison Avenue) and park, which are therefore only indirectly named after President James Madison. The roots of the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club, one of the first organized baseball teams, are in Madison Square. Amateur players began in 1842 to use a vacant sandlot at 27th and Madison for their games and, eventually, Alexander Cartwright suggested they draw up rules for the game and start an organized team. When they lost their sandlot to development, they moved across the Hudson River to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they played their first game in 1846. Opening of the park On May 10, 1847, the Madison Square Park, named after President James Madison, opened to the public. Within a few years, the tide of residential development, which was relentlessly moving uptown, had reached the Madison Square area. Initially, the houses around the park were narrow, crowded and dark brownstone rowhouses with small rooms easily subject to becoming cluttered. Today, the only remnant of these brownstones is a single building at 14 East 23rd Street. Despite this beginning, through the 1870s, the neighborhood became an aristocratic one of brownstone row houses and mansions where the elite of the city lived; Theodore Roosevelt, Edith Wharton and Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie Jerome, were all born here. Madison Cottage was torn down in 1852 to make way for Franconi's Hippodrome, which lasted only for two years. It was an arena which seated 10,000 customers, and presented chariot races on its wide track, as well as exotic animals such as elephants and camels. A money-loser, it would be razed so that the Fifth Avenue Hotel could be built on the site. In 1853, plans had been made to build the Crystal Palace there, but strong public opposition and protests caused the palace to be relocated by the Board of Aldermen to the site of present-day Bryant Park. During the 1863 New York City draft riots, 10,000 Federal troops brought