Boxing
Gleason’s Gym to Share Brooklyn Street Name
Heather Hardy jumps rope at Gleason’s Gym. Photo: Ryan Songalia
The most eminent boxing club in the world just became a little more eminent.
Gleason’s Gym, the Brooklyn gym where Jake LaMotta, Roberto Duran and many other champions trained for their championship fights, will have the street in front of its building renamed in his honor. The corner of Water Street and Adams Street in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn will be co-named Gleason’s Gym Way after the Recent York City Council passed legislation last month authorizing the outfitting of 100 streets and public spaces across the city with commemorative street signs.
Bruce Silverglade, who bought a 50 percent stake in the gym in 1984 and became its sole owner in 1991, said the gym will host a party to celebrate the naming of the street. The ceremony will be held at the gym on Aug. 21 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Former boxing champions, government officials and entertainment figures, as well as the general public, will be invited. Food and drinks will also be served.
“It’s a huge honor, I’m excited, I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s something that surprised me and I’m just excited. It’s something I really look forward to when I come to the gym every day,” said Silverglade, who opens the gym himself at 5 a.m. every morning.
“It’s an honor for all the athletes who have been here. We’ve had 137 world champions, hundreds of amateur champions, a couple of kids who have won Olympic gold medals, we’ve made a lot of videos. It’s a collective effort of everyone who’s been here.”
Bruce Silverglade at Gleason’s Gym
The gym, which was first opened in 1937 by boxer-turned-manager Bobby Gleason, has moved locations three times in its 84-year history. Gleason’s opened in The Hub neighborhood in the Bronx until it lost its lease, moving to Eighth Avenue and West 30th in Manhattan in 1974. After losing its lease at that location, Gleason’s moved in 1985 to 77 Front Street in the area now known as DUMBO. Gleason’s moved again in 2016 to its current location at 130 Water Street as a favor to its landlord, who felt he could do better business there because the neighborhood was booming.
Silverglade says the process of naming the street took about a year and a half, and began after City Councilman Lincoln Restler suggested he name the building after the landmark. Silverglade refused because it would put restrictions on the changes he could make to the business, so Restler offered to propose naming the street instead.
“I said, now that would be great. What are we going to call it, Silverglade’s Way? He said unfortunately you can’t name it after a person unless they’ve been dead for three years, so I said OK, I’ll pass on that. So it’s going to be Gleason’s Gym Way,” Silverglade said.
Sonya Lamonakis is one of many eminent boxers who have called Gleason’s home over the years. Lamonakis says she began training at Gleason’s in 2005 and has won four Recent York Golden Gloves titles as well as an IBO heavyweight championship while training at Gleason’s. She says the fact that the gym has been honored by the city is an honor shared by all boxers.
“I feel like the people who trained at Gleason will feel a sultry feeling in their hearts when they know that the place where they gave their blood, sweat and tears will be forever etched in history, because I feel the same way,” Lamonakis said.
Current trainers at Gleason’s Gym include former WBO junior featherweight and junior lightweight world champion Joan Guzman and former WBO featherweight world champion Heather Hardy.
The gym also remains a popular venue for amateur boxing shows and is used for media training sessions for virtually every major boxing event held in Recent York.
Gleason’s Gym Way is the latest addition to the list of boxing figures and institutions that have been honored with street names over the years. The Joe Louis Plaza street sign stands at the corner of Seventh Ave. and West 33rd Street in Manhattan, outside Madison Square Garden. A section of Lexington Avenue between 114th and 115th Streets was collectively named Hector “Macho” Camacho Way in front of the East Harlem apartment building where he grew up.
Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer and manager who mentored the careers of Mike Tyson and Floyd Patterson, also has a street named after him: East 14th Street, which was once the site of the eminent Gramercy Gym.
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