Main Street Gym

I dug out the old photos of the Main Street Gym and fired up the scanner at the Daily Mirror HQ.

main_street_gym_1976_0210_marilyn-k-yee

Photograph by Marilynn K. Yee / Los Angeles Times

Then I took a closer look at this picture from 1976.

Hm. What’s this?

main_street_gym_1976_0210_detail2_marilyn-k-yee

main_street_gym_1976_0210_detail_marilyn-k-yee

And what’s this?

Why that looks like an old theater.

main_street_gym_1976_0210_detail3_marilyn-k-yee

Hm. Look at this architectural detail.

The Main Street Gym was at 318 1/2 S. Main St. What theater would have been next door at 320 S. Main St.?

Aha, it’s our old pal the Hippodrome!

But the Hippodrome was supposedly torn down in 1952 for a parking lot. I started wondering if the facade was saved for offices.

Then I noticed this about the interior of the Main Street Gym in another 1976 photo:

main_street_gym_1976_0210_pic02_marilynn-k-yee

Photograph by Marilynn K. Yee / Los Angeles Times

What’s in the background? It looks like a small proscenium.

main_street_gym_1976_0210_marilynn-k-yee_detail

Here’s a detail.
Look at the light sockets in the archway.

I wonder if the Main Street Gym was in some upstairs dance hall at what used to be the Hippodrome. If anyone can shed light on this little mystery, let me know…

Email me

About lmharnisch

I am retired from the Los Angeles Times
This entry was posted in Downtown and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Main Street Gym

  1. Ken McIntyre says:

    The auditorium of the theater was torn down in the early 50s. The facade and upstairs space was preserved. The upstairs was the gym, obviously. Parking was in the lot behind the facade. The whole thing was torn down in 1984.

    Like

  2. Anthony little says:

    Can anyone shed ligh on who the two guys are that are sparring, am I correct to believe one of them is Monroe Brooks who fought Roberto Duran and Bruce curry?

    Like

  3. Herman "Kid" Montes says:

    I know the trainer standing on the right side boxing ring top corner his name is Pat Mc~Guire I sparred over a thousand round’s ther @ the Main Street Gym ” with champ’s like Danny “Lil Red ” Lopez , Sean Ogrady , Esteban De Jesus, Vilamar Fernandez, Bobby ” School Boy ” Chacon, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, also many contender’s, it was the gym to go and find the best fighter’s in the world .

    Like

  4. PATRICK L QUAID says:

    Not sure if you will get this but, my grandfather ran the main st. gym in the 50’s , I have a lot of old pic of him and my uncle in the gym. and the Fighters he work with.

    Like

Leave a Reply. Note: Your IP is logged with your comment so a fake name and email address are useless.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s