For more than half a century, it was a musty pugilistic monument--preserved in liniment and sweat--where generations of Los Angeles prizefighters learned the lessons of "the sweet science."
The Main Street Gym, on the edge of skid row, was the rattiest workout venue in the city (some said the world), but it also was the most famous. "World Rated Boxers Train Here Daily" read a sign at the entrance. It was where young boys with little education and lots of heart came to train and listen hungrily to boxing tales from the old men who had spent more than half of their lives there.
The grimy little gym, where the bells bonged every three minutes and the dirty wooden floors creaked, drew some of the greats and not-so-greats who didn't know a left hook from a fishhook. It opened in 1933 at 321 S. Main St. as the successor to the Spring Street Newsboys' Gym. The building burned down in 1951 (while the night watchman slept), and the gym moved across the street to 318 1/2, atop the old Adolphus Theater.
There were other gyms in the city, but none had Main Street's reputation. At various times, fabled champions Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), Joe Frazier, Jim Jeffries and Sugar Ray Robinson trained there.
But it was the gym's proprietor, former featherweight Howie Steindler, who ran the place with unquestioned authority--like a drill sergeant in boot camp--and kept it going with the help of two savvy sidekicks, Arthur "Duke" Holloway and Rip Rosenburrow.
Steindler was an amateur fighter in New York before drifting to Los Angeles in 1942, when he began working as a crane operator at the shipyards. Later, as a prop man for RKO Studios, he met George Hansford, a former featherweight professional, whom Steindler trained for a successful comeback.
Drawing on his years of experience, Steindler took over Main Street Gym about 1960. The feisty, crusty and often sarcastic manager/trainer kept a lock on his phone and the gym's office in his pocket. He cultivated a tough guy persona, but was known up and down skid row as a soft touch for a hard-luck story.
In the beginning, to make ends meet, he also worked as an auto mechanic, chauffeur and cabdriver.
It was risky navigating the street in front of the gym with the Union Rescue Mission nearby. But Steindler kept a billy club hanging on the wall in case of trouble. Occasionally, a bum would find his way up the stained marble stairs, where Steindler or one of his assistants would eject him with just a few harsh words--except on rainy days.
