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Cubicle Contenders, How white-collar changed boxing in Brooklyn
October 3, 2006
Dragon Fire
by Charles Lane
If you squeeze the Mike Tyson fighting machine into Woody Allen's body, you get a scrawny Jewish man with a rapid-fire jab and glasses that forever slip off his nose. Meet David Lawrence: investment broker, poet and literature teacher turned pro boxer.
I first encounter David as he lounges in the back of the dim office he shares with the other trainers at Gleason’s boxing gym in Brooklyn, New York. Through the window behind him, I can see the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River under a bruised sky. The murky outside backlights David as he leans into the chair and stretches his legs out all the way across the narrow office to the desk on the other side.
He is sweaty, heaving in fact, and wearing a wife-beater undershirt, his two skinny arms dangling toward the dingy floor. His hands are still wrapped in boxers’ tape so that, whenever he pushes his glasses back up his nose, he is forced to use his entire hand, making it look as if he’s punching himself in the face.
Outside David’s office is a din of rattling chains and blunt leather-on-leather thuds. This takes place in a 15,000-square-foot [1,394-square-meter] open room with supporting concrete columns and ancient wooden rafters. In the center is a round clock that buzzes three times every four minutes. There is a thick stench of sweat and not much air circulation. Gleason’s is the iconic boxing gym, gritty and dark, with florescent lights that flicker on and off like the lights in a deserted subway station.
Actually, you’ve probably already seen pictures of Gleason’s in the movies or in a magazine ad because, according to owner Bruce Silverglade, the gym has been in well over 200 films, TV commercials and photo shoots. (Take another look at Midnight Run and Raging Bull.) Silverglade has just co-authored a new boxing workout book for women with a forward by Hilary Swank.
“Most of the people I train now are white-collar boxers,” David says, referring to the urban professionals now flooding Gleason’s.
As a trainer, David has seen a dramatic shift in who comes into the gym everyday. Boxing has long been thought of as a sport for the underclass, in which street fighters could pick themselves up by the bootstraps by hitting it big in the ring. Sports commentator Jimmy Cannon called it the “the red light district of sports.” Now, 75% of the 900 boxers at Gleason’s are considered white-collar, amateur fighters, and about one-fourth of all members are women. Many of them work in Manhattan’s financial district, which is only two subway stops away. They come seeking a grittier, more authentic atmosphere than they might find by taking a boxing class at an upscale gym like New York Sports Club or Bally’s. Because they have brought money as well as enthusiasm into the ring, they have helped change both the image and the economics of Brooklyn boxing.
The trend started around 1990 with a few serious amateurs who wanted to get more authentic ring time but didn’t have time to compete in events like the golden gloves.
“We had the idea to organize these fights which we called white-collar,” David explains. “We had them once a month and we charged admission, and the guys would bring their family and co-workers. It was a way to make money.”
By word of mouth, these fights steadily gained in popularity until a string of movies in the mid ’90s stirred popularity that begat even more movies and books and more white-collar people coming to the gym. They are lawyers, business moguls, dental hygienists, middle managers and even Broadway actresses.
“The business people want to stay in shape, and boxing is a great exercise.” He lets out a geeky yuck and adds, “It’s also cool to say you box. You know, it’s not like a weightlifting gym where you do the same thing and what you do is build stress.”
Last November, New York State government officials put the kibosh on the white-collar matches, calling them dangerous and citing a lack of regulation. Gleason’s employees are hoping the state legislature will pass a law exempting white-collar boxing from the state regulations governing other amateur boxing matches by the end of the year. In the meantime, the white-collar population continues to train and to support the gym.
David says the release from the everyday is a strong draw for the white-collar crowd. “They want this because they don’t have to think. Look, I have a PhD. I have a lot of intellectual baggage. If I bring that into the ring, I’m going to get killed.”
David’s own path from nerdy investment broker to gritty boxer was a meandering one. He earned his PhD in literature from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center in 1976. Early in his career, he struggled to find steady work as a professor, so he started selling obscure insurance policies as investments. By the time he was 39, he was a millionaire riding in a chauffeured Rolls Royce and facing charges of tax evasion that ultimately resulted in two years in jail, where he wrote poetry and started to box. (To this day, David maintains his innocence.) When he got out of jail, David boxed professionally to some success – four wins and two losses with three K.O.’s – but mostly now he trains other fighters.
Gleason’s most famous alums include Jake La Motta (a part-time mobster who came to boxing after his father forced him to street fight for coins in the Bronx slums), Roberto Duran (grew up penniless in the Panamanian streets as the illegitimate son of a U.S. solider), Larry Holmes (entered the ring as an illiterate petty criminal) and Mike Tyson (left a broken home for New York’s juvenile detention centers until he was finally adopted by his trainer).
The gym’s history is just as salty. It was founded in 1937 by Bobby Gleason, who changed his name from Gagliardi in order to fit in with the Irish working class fight fans of the day. The original gym opened in the Bronx in a rundown building with occasional running-water and members who just as occasionally paid membership dues. Gleason subsidized the gym for years by moonlighting as a cabbie. After a series of moves and owners, the gym now resides under the Brooklyn Bridge in Fulton Ferry, a musty neighborhood quickly becoming more expensive.
Looking around, you can see the dichotomy of where white-collar is meeting blue-collar for the first time. Gleason’s is on the second floor of a converted warehouse that used to be part of the rundown waterfront, which is now undergoing a major facelift and attracting upscale stores. There’s a new Starbucks down the street and a gourmet spice shop around the corner. Inside the gym, there are pockets of items that seem out of place: gleaming white posters for a “fantasy boxing camp” decorate dingy concrete walls. There are T-shirts and bottles of Evian water for sale.
David says the spruced up clientèle has helped keep Brooklyn boxing in business. Not only have the matches brought funds to Gleason’s, but individual enthusiasts have helped support the careers of pros they’ve befriended in the gym, volunteering both cash and services.
“They’re good – good for the gym,” David says. “A lot of gyms have closed. Gleason’s would have closed if it weren’t for the white-collar fighters. They bring in a lot of money and they support the boxers.”
Chrissy Beckles, a trainer and manager at Gleason’s, agrees that support is essential to the gym.
“Twenty years ago, there were 150 boxing gyms in New York. Now all but eight have closed. They have been really good to boxing,” she says, indicating the white-collar supporters. Chrissy sits next to the chessboard at the front door, checking people in and out.
“Not only do they support the gyms,” she says while taking memberships dues from a dental hygienist who smells of cigarette smoke, “but they also help the pros who don’t always come from well-off backgrounds. They’re so enamored with the sport that they help out the pro fighters financially if they’ve been injured.”
Running her finger through the list of gym members, Chrissy rattles off the benefits white-collar boxers bring to the pro boxers. “We have doctors who come in and help the ones without insurance. Then there’s the dentist and also a chiropractor who helps. We have lawyers and accountants who give free advice. The list is endless.”
With all the good things white-collar boxers have done for the sport, Chrissy admits their presence did call for one modification. Chrissy says they had to make their white-collar matches so there were no winners or losers in order to keep people from becoming discouraged. After a white-collar fighter checks out, she turns and says: “They aren’t very good losers. How do you tell a Wall Street hotshot they just lost a fight? So we don’t. We let them both win.”
I take a tour of the gym, and it’s apparent that boxing is in the middle of a shift. David’s white-collar fighters are easy to pick out. They are less physically imposing than the pros. They smile easily and are prone to standing around chatting.
Phil Mayor’s story is common. He’s 49 with a well-paying, yet monotonous job as a judge for municipal unions. Trim and good-looking, Phil has soft hands and skinny legs accustomed to running long distances, an exercise he did before boxing and before he got divorced.
“Going through a divorce isn’t very pleasant,” Phil tells me between breaths, as he hits a 200-pound heavy bag. “One day I said, ‘I gotta get out of the house,’ and coming here was a good release. It’s a good way to get anger out by hitting the bag.”
Before the divorce, the most aggressive Phil ever got was basketball. “Now people punch my face,” he says with a grin. “My ex-wife thought it was just a mid-life crisis.”
Phil goes back to hitting the bag. He punches and steps to the side, creating an adept-looking rhythm. He gets the bag swinging back and forth until finally he attempts to hit the bag as it swings back in his direction, which buckles his wrist and knocks him off balance. He looks at me uncomfortably from the corner of his eye, and I move along to save us both an embarrassing moment.
On the other side of the gym under a row of speed bags is Carl Weiner, a garment industry inspector who is also going through a divorce. As he tells it, he was moping through the streets when he saw a sign for a boxing gym. “I came up and said ‘I want to learn how to hit a speed bag.’ I was 65 years old, overweight and never did anything like this before. They said, ‘OK, give us time.’”
Carl is balding with a large belly, a gold watch and two grown children. I ask him about the purpose of hitting the melon-sized punching bag, and he shrugs.
“I haven’t figured out the point of this entire exercise. They just tell me what to do and I do it.” After hitting the bag some more he adds, “I just always wanted to do it. I saw it on T.V. and it look like something I wanted to do, and why not do it here at a world famous gym?”
Bob Jackson is one of the gym’s best-known trainers, a former corrections officer who keeps a loaded pistol clipped to the belt under his bulging stomach.
“You never know when you’ll need it,” he said about the gun. “The one time I took it off and put it in the locker, someone tried to steal it.”
In his office, Bob speaks with a harsh and gravelly voice that he uses to stoke his fighters. Like him, most came to boxing from street fighting. Some are in and out of trouble with the law, and most piece together a living with several part-time jobs.
“These guys are just looking for something productive to do,” Bob says. He looks at four fighters surrounding him with fondness.
“Tell him what you do, Elvis,” Bob says to a young man slouched in the corner.
“I have like four jobs. I work at Babies ‘R’ Us as a furniture salesman. I sell shoes. I’m trying to finish school, and I’m a boxer.” Elvis Cyone is heavily tattooed with gold caps on his visible teeth. He doesn’t romanticize how he came to boxing: “I just like to fight. I don’t know why, I just like it.”
When I ask Bob about the appeal of fighting, his voice turns sweet and the office gets very still. “Boxing is the most pure thing there is. It’s two men, nearly naked, standing in the ring trying to outdo the other.” Bob pauses to look at the boys perched around him, waiting for the words to come out of his mouth. Wagging a slow finger he says, “only one man can win, only the strongest and most disciplined. That’s why you have to be the best.”
When I broach the subject of white-collar boxing, Bob turns gruff and the boys sneer.
“You mean civilians?” Everyone chuckles, “Yeah, I train them too. I didn’t want to at first. But they help keep the gym open and make it so I can train these guys.” He indicates the pros around him.
Sal Musumeci is a boxing promoter who works with Bob. “Boxing has this bad image. Boxers are criminals and illiterate. It’s changing.” Sal says the driving force behind the change are the new white-collar fans.
Among promoters, Sal is a small fish. Most of his shows are local and don’t attract ESPN or HBO, so he relies on support from the community, mainly the business community and working professionals who have extra money and an interest in boxing.
“These people are going to change boxing,” Sal says. “If this sport is going to survive, we need people like them."
Posted by 1000monkeys on October 3, 2006 08:21 PM