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August 13, 2008
Boxing Archive a Knockout at Brooklyn College
A cavernous collection of boxing memorabilia has completed the journey from a Florida garage to the brick-and-ivy campus of the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, according to a New York Times article published today. The college acquired the collection, appraised at $2.94-million, from Hank Kaplan, a former boxing journalist who kept thousands of newspaper clippings, photographs, boxing gloves, and champion belts in his house and two-car garage until his death last year at 88.
The archive, which features the heavy bag Cassius Clay punched before renaming himself Muhammad Ali and a gold cigarette case that the heavyweight Max Baer gave his trainer, will now share space with Robert Frost first editions and the correspondence of local civic leaders at the Brooklyn College Library.
The collection, currently housed in a 10-foot-high chamber in the Brooklyn College archives with a small, public display in the library itself, is not yet available to researchers. But Anthony M. Cucchiara, a professor of archival management at Brooklyn College who is also an amateur boxer and who met with Mr. Kaplan before his death, is trying to raise $200,000 to house it in acid-free storage, to study and catalog it. He said that the history of boxing, with its fierce ethnic rivalries and close-knit neighborhood gyms, illuminates the history of America in general and New York specifically.
“I suppose some people would turn their noses up at a boxing collection,” said Mr. Cucchiara. “But the story of America is in this archive.” —Ingrid Norton
Posted on Wednesday August 13, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Terrific. How about some of the people that have made bags of money from boxing pick up the tab for storing, displaying and cataloging this museum of a brutal sport.
BC Class of 1955
— AW Aug 13, 05:43 PM #
I agree the sport’s associations should come up with much of the money. I’m sure Muhammed Ali would write a check if someone would let him know. There is a massive pool of potential donors…they just need to be asked.
— Paul Aug 13, 08:07 PM #
“…the story of America is in this archive.”
It’s a nasty story. Strong men (and also women) bludgeon each other with the short term goal of inflicting sufficient neurological trauma to render an opponent unconscious. The long term consequences are to be seen in the disabilities of retired fighters. All this goes on before enthusiastic spectators who pay to watch the violence.
Is this really “the story of America?”
— George Gollin Aug 14, 10:54 AM #
“Violence is as American as cherry pie.” – H. Rap Brown
— JD Aug 14, 03:17 PM #
When I read the headlining quote I honestly thought it was a comment on academic colloquia. I was confused not so much bythe “story of America” business as the comment about the spectatorial glee some take in senseless, short-sighted and neurologically damaging pugilism. Now that I think about it, the metaphor breaks down in other places too. To get tenure, academics can’t merely spectate but need to land some good shots themselves. Even more obviously, no one would ever pay money to come to an academic conference.
— JDJ Aug 15, 06:28 AM #