Plates & Prints

The Gallery

The floor · the corner · the street

A boxer in headgear and gloves under the lights at the Gramercy Gym, 1986 — **Plate I · 1986**
The Gramercy Gym, second floor. The author getting ready to fight in front of fifteen thousand people at the New York City Golden Gloves finals. Behind him, in the background, the great corner man **Al Gavin**.

The Plates

An empty 1940s New York boxing gym floor with ring and heavy bags — **Plate II · The Floor** — One ring, a row of bags, brick walls, and bare bulbs doing all the work. No lobby, no juice bar.

An older trainer leaning through the ropes speaking to a seated fighter — **Plate III · The Corner** — Everything that actually matters is said quietly, between rounds.

Two boxers sparring in vintage headgear and lace-up gloves — **Plate IV · The Work** — Nothing mystical. Only repetition, honestly done.

A boxer working a heavy bag in a dim gym — **Plate V · The Bags** — Where the fear gets sorted out before anybody is watching.

A 1940s East 14th Street scene in Manhattan with storefronts and a narrow stairway door — **Plate VI · Fourteenth Street** — The door between the two storefronts. Two flights up, and the stairs creaked in a particular way.

A row of boxers and promoters in period dress posed at an outdoor ring — **Plate VII · The Trade** — The men who built the business the Gramercy inherited.

Turn-of-the-century boxers and spectators in suits and bowler hats — **Plate VIII · The Line** — Before the Gramercy, before the commission, before the gloves were padded. Same street, same city.

Close view of the 1986 Gramercy Gym photograph — **Plate IX · Detail** — Headgear, lace-up gloves, and the face of a man who had not yet done the thing he was about to do.

A note on the plates: Plates I and IX are original period photographs from the Gramercy Gym. The remaining plates are period-style reconstructions made for this site, in the manner of 1940s press photography — they depict the room as it was, not specific identifiable individuals.

Wear the room.

Shirts, posters and gym goods from the Gramercy Gym.

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