Gleason's Gym

Peter Robert Gagliardi, a flyweight turned bantamweight, changed his name to Bobby Gleason in order to appeal to the predominantly Irish New York fight crowd of the era and opened the doors to the gym in 1937. Dues were two dollars a month, and the times were tough. Bobby could not meet his expenses, including the $50 per month rent, so he hacked a cab for 10 or 12 hours a night. Things eased up after the depression. Gleason’s flourished along with boxing in the 40’s and 50’s, but the 60’s took their toll. The sport declined and two of its temples – Stillman’s Gym and the Old Garden – disappeared. That left Gleason’s as the last remnant of boxing’s “Golden Age” in New York City. The gym was located in the “Hub” district of the lower Bronx at 434 Westchester Avenue, near 149th Street and 3rd Avenue. Fighters from the East, West, and the World made it to the double door leading you up the one flight of stairs and into another world that was not seen by very many fans. The gym was the largest in the city. It looked like an old coal cellar. It needed a paint job and the wooden floors might have been taken from the Mayflower. A blind man with a sense of smell would have known what went on there. The gym became eerily quiet when the next bell rang. Men who, a second before, had been brutalizing heavy bags, suddenly began walking around like zombies. This lasted for one minute, until the next bell rang, when they resumed their frenzied pace. The “full line of equipment” at Bobby’s consisted of four heavy bags, six racks to hang speed bags (bring your own) lots of exercising space with mirrors, clean showers and locker rooms, row upon row of spectator’s viewing seats close to a full sized ring located in the center of the room. The hygienic facilities were two showers and a toilet. The latter was an overhead waterbox facility. The showers had weather problems. In the winter you could usually get enough water through the old pipes to take a shower. But in the summer, the neighborhood kids opened the fire hydrants to cool off and the pressure dropped, the water did not make it up to the second floor. Character is built on adversity. A sign hung on the office wall at the top of the stairs. It read “Your dues are due today. If they have not been paid please do so and save yourself the embarrassment of being asked. Thank you. The Management.” Bobby Gleason was not as bad as he made himself out to be. He had been known to let guys slide for months if they did not have the money. He was a feisty, well-dressed, principled man with enormous energy, and a sense of humor. Moving through the gym you came to several huge 8 foot windows that looked out onto Westchester Avenue. There another sign hung on the wall. In bold red letters it read: “No smoking or spitting on the floor.” On a normal busy afternoon the gym was packed. All the punching bags were in motion, and every inch of floor space was used for shadow boxing or skipping rope. There was at least an hour and a half wait for the ring (which went on a first come, first serve basis). The trainers, Patty Colovito, Freddie Brown, Chickie Ferrara and Charlie Galeta, to name a few, were there from morning until night six days a week. Back then a trainer could make a good living from boxing. That’s when there were a lot of clubs running and fighters could get all the work they wanted. The gym grew in stature as local heroes such as Jake (The Bronx Bull) LaMotta, Mike Belloise, Phil Terranova and Jimmy Carter punched their way through the rankings to win world titles. Bobby Gleason managed Phil Terranova and on August 16, 1943, Terranova won the NBA Featherweight Title in New Orleans by knocking out Jackie Callura in the eighth round. Mike Belloise had already won the World Featherweight Title and Jake LaMotta and Ray Robinson had gone the distance in Madison Square Garden (Robinson W10 LaMotta) on October 2, 1942. Jimmy Carter , first fighting as a featherweight, drew with Sandy Saddler in Washington, D.C. in 1947. Then on May 25, 1951 in New York, Carter KO’d Ike Williams in the 14th round. By then, Gleason’s Gym was on fire, as it’s reputation for turning out top-ranked contenders and champions spread. Two years earlier on June 16, 1949, LaMotta stopped Marcel Cerdan in Detroit’s Briggs Stadium to win the World Middleweight Title. Yet another Gleason’s Gym trained boxer, Carlos Ortiz, was suddenly a factor in the fight game and on June 12, 1959, he KO’d Kenny Lane in New York to win the World Junior Welterweight Title. Movie filming location for Raging Bull, and the place that whipped Colin Farrell into shape for The Recruit and Hillary Swank for Million Dollar Baby!