Prizefighter or Weekend Warrior, Boxers flock to Renowned Gym
“Now, whoever has courage and a strong, collected spirit in his breast, let him come forward, lace on the gloves and put his hands up.”
-Virgil
So reads a large yellow sign bearing the name of New York’s most storied boxing gym. It’s not located in the same building in the Bronx where it was founded in 1937. It’s not even in the gym’s second location, and next month it will move again a few blocks away from its current home in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. But it’s not the gym’s address that has boxers of all skill levels fighting to get into its rings. domain discovery . It’s the name.
Listening to Bruce Silverglade tell the unlikely story of how he came to own the world’s oldest boxing gym, one gets the impression that he tells it often.
Boxers who train there know not to waste the opportunity, so the gym is constantly filled with a cacophony of thuds from punching bags, the shuffling feet of shadow boxers, and the rhythmic rattle of speed bags. Occasionally a bell signals the end of the round and the noise stops as the fighters go to their corners to rest.
Kay Stephenson is new to boxing and was lured by the gym’s reputation. She makes the trek from Woodside, Queens to train there – a trip she says is worth it.
“You think about boxing in New York, the first thing – even somebody like me who has no skills or knowledge of the sport – everybody’s heard of Gleason’s,” said Stephenson. “It’s a household name.”
The 31-year-old Indiana native started boxing to complement and build on her skills in mixed martial arts, and to see where the sport takes her.
Unlike Stephenson, Neuky Santelises knows where boxing is taking him – to the top. The Manhattan resident, by way of the Dominican Republic, is confident that he will make a name for himself in the sport, but, “just in case,” as he says, Santelises attends City College for computer engineering.
The promising young fighter hopes to join the names like Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson and George Foreman on Gleason’s hall of fame – though at 132 pounds, probably not right next to those heavyweights. Santelises makes time between classes for daily trips to the gym because he knows that his Golden Gloves won’t be served to him on a silver platter.
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