'The Greatest' Remembered at Ali's old New York Gym
In Gleason's Gym, under the Brooklyn Bridge, everybody remembers Muhammad Ali, "The Greatest," one of the many champions who have passed through this mythical New York gym where men and women of all ages still train and box with passion.
An unmarked door in an unremarkable building in the gritty southeast New York borough opens into a space that just breathes boxing: walls covered with posters of champions, four rings, heavy training bags, speed bags, jump ropes.
The images of Muhammad Ali, who many consider the greatest boxer in history and who turns 70 on Tuesday, are everywhere in Gleason's and the gym's owner, Bruce Silverglade, proudly remembers the ties that unite them.
"He came up here and prepared himself for the fighting that stunned the world," Silverglade told Agence France Presse, referring to the 1964 heavyweight title bout with Sonny Liston, which made a legend of Ali, then known as Cassius Clay.
"It was a very anticipated fight. He was fighting Sonny Liston, who was a ferocious person and he was someone who was feared in the ring. And you had this young Ali coming around, doing his poetry, yelling to everybody. So everybody wanted to watch this fight," recalled Silverglade.
Silverglade, now 75, later had the opportunity to meet Ali on several occasions, and came to admire him not just as a prizefighter but as a man, one who for years now has endured the ravages of Parkinson's disease.
"Ali is different. Everyone knows Muhammad Ali. And being Ali, the most famous person in the world, he is just a nice person as he has always been. When he comes in Gleason's Gym, he makes time to talk to everyone, to go around, to shake hands," he said.
The gymnasium currently has 1,050 members, including 450 amateur boxers. Among the 600 people who box there for fun are 320 women. And for many of the gym's denizens, Ali is a source of veneration and inspiration.
"I taped him up to make a bronze fist (mold) about five years ago. He's come here again several times. Even sick the way he is now he is one of the greats, a good person. He came and he hit the speed bag well, with no problem," said 73-year-old Hector Roca, a Panamanian trainer and another of the gym's living legends.
Roca, who has trained 19 world champions, was teaching the rudiments of the art to 10-year-old Joseph McCurdy, a shy, blonde-haired boy whose mother brings him in once a week to train.
"It's really cool to be here. I would like to be champion. Hector is very good with me," McCurdy said during a break.
Not far from them is Don Aragon, a 32-year-old who began learning to box last year to stay in shape. "Muhammad Ali is a great fighter, I have a lot of respect for him," he said.
"I didn't know the story of the gym when I started here," he said. "I came here and I saw all these names. It's just amazing. And when you come on Saturdays and Sundays you feel all this energy."
Indeed, it wasn't just Ali who trained in this legendary gym: Jake LaMotta, Wilfred Benitez, Pipino Cuevas, Roberto "Manos de Piedra" Duran, Julio Cesar Chavez, Larry Holmes, Michael Spinks, Thomas Hearns and Mike Tyson are just some on a list of 131 world champions.
Peter Gagliardi, a welterweight who changed his name to Bobby Gleason to attract New Yorkers of Irish descent, opened the gym in 1937 in the Bronx.
In 1974, the gym moved to Manhattan and in 1981 it was sold to Ira Becker, a New York businessman with deep connections in the boxing world. Two years later, Silverglade bought into the business and the gym moved across the river to its current location in the shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge.
At Gleason's, as in much of New York, reality and fantasy sometimes get mixed up and the gym has served as a set for many boxing movies, including Martin Scorsese's unforgettable 1980 flick "Raging Bull," which won Robert de Niro an Oscar.
The last Oscar-winning movie filmed on its premises was "Million Dollar Baby" (2004), directed by Clint Eastwood, which tells the story of a veteran trainer (Eastwood) helping a female boxer (Hilary Swank) on her path to glory before it is cut short by tragedy.
Self-proclaimed "The Greatest," Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay January 17, 1942 in Louisville, Kentucky. As a professional, he earned 56 victories in 61 fights, 37 of those by a knock-out. He is the first and only boxer to win the unified world heavyweight championship three times.
Source: Agence France Presse
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