Читать книгу Jacobs Beach. The Mob, the Garden and the Golden Age of Boxing онлайн

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At the roofless Hippodrome—which Harper's Weekly described at the time as “grimy, drafty, combustible”—the sky was the limit as far as harmless nonsense went. There were waltzing elephants, fire-eaters, the usual sideshow freaks, and all manner of proto-Roman excesses, such as chariot races. And fights, many of which were on the level. Looking over proceedings was an eighteen-foot gilded copper statue of Diana, the goddess of love, who, despite her bulk, swiveled in a light breeze, almost tempting God to knock her down in retribution for the sins committed beneath her ample charms. New Yorkers loved the gaudy excess of P. T.'s Hippodrome, but, even then, the foundations and external trappings were shifting.

Before it became properly notorious, the old place had a couple of different names on its way to becoming known generally as Madison Square Garden, in 1879, just a year before Mike Jacobs was born. And here it was that John L. Sullivan created part of his legend. On July 17, 1882, he took on the British fighter Joe Collins, who was known in some quarters as Joe “Tug” Wilson. Collins/Wilson took up Sullivan's challenge to remain standing for four rounds to collect $1,000. Collins, whose ring history was sketchy and who went down twenty-four times in his efforts to avoid a clean knockout, collected on the dare—but Sullivan's aura was not diminished, at least not among the gullible. They couldn't get enough of this illegal pugilism and the blarney Sullivan brought with it.