Full Description
Gleason's Gym is the last remaining institution of New York's Golden Age of boxing. Jake LaMotta, Muhammad Ali, Hector Camacho, Mike Tyson--the alumni of Gleason's are a roster of boxing greats. Founded in the Bronx in 1937, Gleason's moved in the mid-1980s to what has since become one of New York's wealthiest residential areas--Brooklyn's DUMBO. Gleason's has also transformed, opening its doors to new members, particularly women and white-collar men. Come Out Swinging is Lucia Trimbur's nuanced insider's account of a place that was once the domain of poor and working-class men of color but is now shared by rich and poor, male and female, black and white, and young and old. Come Out Swinging chronicles the everyday world of the gym. Its diverse members train, fight, talk, and socialize together. We meet amateurs for whom boxing is a full-time, unpaid job. We get to know the trainers who act as their father figures and mentors. We are introduced to women who empower themselves physically and mentally. And we encounter the male urban professionals who pay handsomely to learn to box, and to access a form of masculinity missing from their office-bound lives.
Ultimately, Come Out Swinging reveals how Gleason's meets the needs of a variety of people who, despite their differences, are connected through discipline and sport.
Contents
Acknowledgments xi List of Prominent Participants xv Preface xvii Chapter One: Survival in a City Transformed: The Urban Boxing Gym in Postindustrial New York 1 Chapter Two: Work without Wages 16 Chapter Three: Tough Love and Intimacy in a Community of Men 39 Chapter Four: Passing Time: The Expressive Culture of Everyday Gym Life 63 Chapter Five: The Changing Politics of Gender 89 Chapter Six: Buying and Selling Blackness: White-Collar Boxing and the Cultural Capital of Racial Difference 117 Epilogue 142 Methodological Appendix: Ethnographic Research in the Urban Gym 149 Notes 155 References 181 Index 193
