#2: The Ghetto Avenger

TO HEAR IZZY GROVE IS TO UNDERSTAND DAMON RUNYON. UNNERSTAND?

One of the last Guys & Dolls characters to survive into the porn era, Grove was a welterweight fighter known as The Ghetto Avenger in the 1920s. In 1983, he is being thrown out of his office. Hustling in Times Square for 60 years, he booked Lonely Hearts dances and pasted up fight posters for Madison Square Garden. He swears he’s “never been a shylock, a bookie, a tough guy.” But do you believe him?

 

TRANSCRIPT

EPISODE #2

The Ghetto Avenger

Tales of Times Square: The Tapes

Featured voice: Izzy Grove, former welterweight known as “The Ghetto Avenger”

Source: blackcracker.fm/episodes/the-ghetto-avenger/

Editorial note: This is a machine-assisted draft prepared from an archival recording. Speaker labels are inferred, and [unclear] marks audio that should be checked before publication.

Transcript

OPENING MONTAGE  ·  00:05

This is 42nd Street. This is Times Square. I’ve been [unclear] on Broadway for the last 50 years. Live nudes, girls. [Unclear] in the center of town. Check it out. I’m right here. This is Show World Center. It is showtime.

NARRATOR  ·  00:31

This is Tales of Times Square, the tapes. I’m Josh Alan Friedman.

IZZY GROVE  ·  00:48

I live right. I behave myself. [unclear]. I’ll never do nothing to make you feel ashamed of me. Understand? [unclear] and whatever is on my lung is on my tongue. I don’t kid you. I don’t invent stories. Spending a day with Izzy Grove, you get the sense it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there in the asphalt jungle.

NARRATOR  ·  01:11

It’s February 1983. The 73-year-old ex-fighter is being thrown out of his $60-a-month office on 46th Street by the Loew’s Theatre Corporation. They knock down his door. They cut his phone. Now, being an office building, you’re not supposed to sleep there, and Izzy does. But Izzy can’t afford a market rent somewhere else. There’s a sense of impending gentrification as the cleanup Times Square efforts of the 42nd Street Development Corporation and the Office of Midtown Enforcement are gaining momentum.

NARRATOR  ·  01:43

For years, they’ve been scheming to knock down the four corners of 42nd Street at Times Square and replace them with corporate skyscrapers. Eminent domain. Out with the old. The development campaign will be ruthless. But there is sentimental kindness shown by some of the old Broadway crowd who provide Izzy sandwiches and charity. Morris and Jack Rubenstein, owners of the last Howard Johnson’s in Times Square where there used to be five, gives Izzy meals at the counter. He’s known them since they opened an Orangeade stand on Broadway in the 1930s.

NARRATOR  ·  02:19

They never let me go hungry, he says. The Colony Records Store and the Brill Building offered its basement, but it was unfit for habitation. And the rabbi from the Actors’ Temple on 47th Street offers moral support. Izzy attends the Actors’ Temple Synagogue up to five times a week to join the required minyan, which is ten men, which you need to start the prayers. He still goes to the fights every week at the Garden after a sandwich at Howard Johnson’s.

IZZY GROVE  ·  02:46

I hope that people understand me in a proper light that this is, I’m a victim of circumstances, one of these odd quirks of happenstance that befall mankind.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  03:01

Why don’t you fill me in on that, on just the current situation, exactly what’s happening.

IZZY GROVE  ·  03:06

The situation was happening there when I said I’ve been in the building for 17 years. The Loew’s Theater. The Loew’s Theater, the Loew’s said they needed the space, that’s why they’re throwing me out. I went to see Mr. Meyerson, Bernard Meyerson, he’s the president of the Loew’s Theater. He’s a nice fellow. But when I went up the last time to see him to rescind this, they had two, I don’t know if they were two plainclothesmen or two security men from Loew’s that threw me out of the office at six.

NARRATOR  ·  03:41

Izzy has lived at several hotels in Times Square, including the long gone Piccadilly and the Edison. He works on and off from Madison Square Garden putting up fight posters around midtown with a paintbrush and glue, but the jobs have become scarce. For the last 17 years he’s lived in this little office on 46th Street. Loew’s Corporation is not even raising his $60 a month rent, they’re just throwing him out. Marshalls came to his door. He’s only got his apartment until next Tuesday.

IZZY GROVE  ·  04:10

Nobody, understand, nobody would say to me, Izzy, I’ll help you. Where are they?

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  04:23

Jesus, that’s surprising. Where?

IZZY GROVE  ·  04:25

When I made money, They were all there. Hey, free tickets and so and so and fights and after the fights you would have something to eat, but to be alone, to be alone is a very, very, very bad feeling.

NARRATOR  ·  04:46

At 14 years of age in 1924, Izzy Grove from the Lower East Side became an errand boy at the I. Miller Shoe Company on 42nd Street. He told me some salesman tried to bulldoze him, whatever that meant, so Izzy walloped him. Another shoe salesman who witnessed the punch said, kid, you ought to be a fighter. So the salesman fixed Izzy up at the New York Athletic Club on 59th Street. He had his first amateur fight at New York Athletic Club at 14 years old

NARRATOR  ·  05:17

where he lost the decision to some fella named Frank Florio. He continued fighting amateur at the Friars Club on 48th Street and at Westchester Country Clubs. As an amateur, he couldn’t receive cash, so he won gold medals and watches. And at 16 years old in 1926 in Far Rockaway, he fought the former flyweight champion Frankie Gennaro. And Gennaro asked, kid, you got a manager? Well, said Izzy, I got Doc Ryan and Patsy Pagio, they’re working my corner. So Gennaro arranged for some stockbroker named Harry Klein to sponsor him.

NARRATOR  ·  05:54

The stockbroker handed Izzy’s parents a $25 contract. They couldn’t read, but they signed an X and Izzy turned pro at 16 years old and he became known as the Ghetto Avenger. The Ghetto Avenger claims he scored the first knockout at the old Madison Square Garden. He beat former lightweight champion Jimmy Goodrich. And in June 1929, Izzy was the cover of Ring Magazine.

IZZY GROVE  ·  06:20

But truthfully, then I couldn’t get all this. Harry Klein couldn’t get the big fight, so he cut in a guy from the, a gentleman, didn’t call him a guy. He had riders and little bricks who were the assistants to Tom McArdle. At that time, the Madison Square Garden was located on 49th Street and 8th Avenue. Well, he was able to get me a shot against a middleweight heavier than me, a name called Harry Ebbets at the Yankee Stadium. The night Tommy Loughran fought Jimmy Braddock for the World’s Light Heavyweight Championship.

IZZY GROVE  ·  07:11

It was a crowd of about 40, 50,000 people.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  07:13

What year was that about?

IZZY GROVE  ·  07:16

1929. I beat him. It was a very close fight. I rematched this for Singer and Chalkin at the polo grounds. I lost a split decision. Then I had a couple of more fights that I fought. But basically, if I didn’t say, I’m on repetition.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  07:34

What were your titles, Josh? Did you have titles?

IZZY GROVE  ·  07:39

I couldn’t fight titles. I was only started at 14 years of age. I quit boxing when I was 21. How can I hold a title? I was a kid. That time I had to be 18 or 21 years of age before you could fight for 15 rounds for a championship. I could fight 10 rounds.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  07:56

These were professional fights, though?

IZZY GROVE  ·  07:57

Yeah. These were all professional fights. Sure. Then when I lost all my money in the market, I had no desire.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  08:03

What did you lose it on? Do you remember?

IZZY GROVE  ·  08:05

Yeah. [unclear]. Allegheny Corporation, General Motors, United Corporation. What killed me was the Bank of the U.S.

NARRATOR  ·  08:17

The ghetto avenger fought 71 pro bouts, mostly as a welterweight, between 1926 and 1932. He won 35 fights, lost 30, 10 by knockout, and had seven draws. He fought names like Danny Irish Fagan, Gorilla Jones, Vince Dundee, Hilario Martinez, Augie Pisano, and says he boxed the legendary Kid Chocolate, but that fight is not in the records. He did fight at Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, and the St. Nicholas Arena. He fought European middleweight champ Ignacio Ara in Havana, Cuba,

NARRATOR  ·  08:55

his only fight outside of the United States. Ara won on points. But after losing six fights in a row, Izzy hung it up in 1932, at the age of only 21. Six losses in a row, retired at 21, the best welterweight in New York. Something didn’t square with that. Something sounded amiss.

IZZY GROVE  ·  09:15

Well, one thing I want to say to you, and I want to pinpoint one thought. And quote me, yesterday’s cheers have a very short echo.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  09:28

Say that again.

IZZY GROVE  ·  09:29

Yesterday’s cheers. Cheers have a short echo. Because when I was making money with a different story, I helped people, helped former fighters, I did. When I was so broke, I didn’t have nothing. I was very hungry. I starved. So I know the benefit of saving a few bucks. I’m 73 years of age. I never convicted of a crime or a felony. I know my place. I know my place in society. I have 60 grandchildren. I hate to sound repetitious, but they are treasures.

IZZY GROVE  ·  10:09

My two sons, my two daughter-in-laws, I see them occasionally. If I had a car, I’d be able to see them more easily.

NARRATOR  ·  10:19

Izzy’s children are nowhere to be found during this eviction crisis. He is on his own. But Broadway has always offered opportunities for thousands of small fry hustlers and bookies and wannabes scratching out a hard dollar. Telephone booth Indians was the phrase coined by A.J. Liebling. Those are guys who look like Bud Abbott, with fedora hats and cigarettes dangling from their lip, cutting deals in telephone booths.

NARRATOR  ·  10:47

Grove made a living for himself booking ballroom dances at ballrooms for cut rate prices when these halls failed to book a more substantial event and had an open night. In the early parts of their careers, he booked Lionel Hampton, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday at hotels and dances, which they’d play in the early evening before a better gig at the Cotton Club. I’ve seen Izzy’s name in the trade publications of the time, Billboard and Variety, but even as a booking agent, Izzy couldn’t quite make that good a living.

IZZY GROVE  ·  11:18

My first office was here in the Gady Building. The Gady Building. 1547 Broadway.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  11:24

Is that the one they knocked down recently? Yeah, that’s the Gady Building. How do you feel about that, being knocked down?

IZZY GROVE  ·  11:30

Well, it’s a land bar that’s got me upset. Then I moved to the Bond Building here. The Bond Building at Edmonds was on Broadway. I had debts paid. I paid $15 a month. I wasn’t a spectacular guy. I was making a living. This was an extracurricular activity. I couldn’t make a living, mister. I had no attractions. I wasn’t the Music Corporation of America or General of Music or William Morris office. These are the three key bookers in the business. The rest is all amateur indexing.

IZZY GROVE  ·  12:06

I ran dances. Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday in concert, Riverside Plaza, Riverside Plaza, Manhattan Center, St. George Hotel in Brooklyn. I made money, and I was able to. My wife, Alice Grove, was an invalid. It cost me a lot of money. Doctors, Dr. Charles Platz, he’s with the Mount Sinai Hospital. He still is an arthritis man. But my wife, instead of me building up a pool room, [unclear], being a tough guy, being a tough guy, I went into this booking business.

NARRATOR  ·  12:48

Izzy was morally conflicted, and his protestations proclaiming he was never a shylock, a bookie, or a tough guy, quick to use his fists, seemed a little exaggerated. Nobody ever asked him. He often visited Variety, the weekly showbiz newspaper whose little office was on his block to check up on his tiny ads for dances. Considered a nuisance, he got into a fist fight with the production manager one day in the late 1970s.

NARRATOR  ·  13:15

After the old Variety office was demolished, Izzy made one visit to the new corporate style headquarters on Park Avenue South. He took one look at the entrance, then turned around, never to return.

IZZY GROVE  ·  13:29

But you see, I was licensed and bonded. I had a franchise from the American Federation of Musicians, number 1662. I never was on the affair list. Many a time, I booked a band. If I couldn’t fight, I wind up getting paid off with nothing. Understand what for me is, I know we’re living in an age where class and brains predominate, not brawn.

NARRATOR  ·  14:00

On the streets of Times Square, brawn could sometimes be much more valuable than brains. Izzy could still bang. He took out three muggers on the subway in 1983 and made the New York Post.

IZZY GROVE  ·  14:13

Well, let me tell you something. I was riding the subway coming from the St. George Hotel, understand? A couple of guys wanted to sit next to me here, one over here, and they wanted to go through my pockets. I got up, understand? I says, what are you doing? Well, I won the first, brother. The first guy, I had a left hook, understand? Down he went. Second guy was a little tougher. They took me three or four punches, they felt them out.

IZZY GROVE  ·  14:56

The cops on the trains, understand, went through the trains. They couldn’t find the guys, understand? Two, one black one, maybe Spanish. You can believe me, I can take care of myself, one guy.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  15:12

That’s right.

IZZY GROVE  ·  15:13

One, yes, but not two or three. Not two or three. I got a piece in my pocket in case I do need it for more than one fella, but I’m not looking for no. I’m not looking for trouble.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  15:26

You carry it on?

IZZY GROVE  ·  15:29

No, I carry it. A knife? Like a knife, like jack. Let me alone. I don’t look for nothing, but there’s one thing I’ll tell you. I’m not looking for trouble.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  15:40

What’s that?

IZZY GROVE  ·  15:41

People afraid of coming. I’m in my office at night. If I’m out in the garden, even the garden. I leave before it gets too late. I leave at 10 o’clock. Nine thirty, ten, I leave. It starts at seven thirty, three hours, two hours is enough.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  16:03

Do you walk back home? We don’t walk back home. Take a cab?

IZZY GROVE  ·  16:06

No, no, I’m no cab driver. I take the 8th Avenue bus to 46th Street. I walk a block, understand? I walk in the middle of the street. I don’t walk on the sidewalk, I [unclear].

NARRATOR  ·  16:18

I asked the standard question that I asked all Broadway old timers. What did they think of their beloved old Broadway becoming a porno wasteland?

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  16:27

When you noticed it started turning into a porn, more of a porn place, which it especially is now, how do you feel about that? Have you ever been into any of these porn stores? Check out, see what they got in there?

IZZY GROVE  ·  16:43

I don’t bother with that.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  16:45

Have you ever been in one?

IZZY GROVE  ·  16:46

No, never.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  16:48

How do you feel about that?

IZZY GROVE  ·  16:50

It is an insult to a great city like New York, and as I remember, really to come, this is the greatest city in the world. It’s disgraceful, it’s distasteful, and it’s not a polite society. I was a family man, and I’m still a grandfather, understand, still have, I keep my head up in the air because my self-respect is not for sale.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  17:27

Your self-respect is not for sale?

IZZY GROVE  ·  17:32

Positively. I had propositions of me given to me by many a person.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  17:35

Like what? What would be something you would have turned down because of that self-respect?

IZZY GROVE  ·  17:45

Be a solicitor for crap games, type numbers, money, be a steerer for a shylock. My wife is gone since 1964. My wife made me. Instead of being a tough guy, a Sherlock or a racket guy, my wife said, Izzy, you want to be someone, do it the right way. Behave yourself and people respect you, and you’ll always get by. Understand? Thank God you quit boxing in time. Now look, I quit boxing now because I couldn’t fight no more.

IZZY GROVE  ·  18:24

I lost all my money in the stock market and I crashed in 1929. I had no desire.

NARRATOR  ·  18:30

The question remains as to why Izzy quit boxing when he lost all his money in the stock market. At the prime age of 21, you’d think he’d want to go back in the ring and make more money. Nevertheless, Izzy remains very close to the boxing world at Madison Square Garden. He goes through the fights every week, and he’ll tell you about it here.

IZZY GROVE  ·  18:50

So I get there about 7 o’clock to talk to people, you know.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  18:54

You meet people. You must know hundreds of people.

IZZY GROVE  ·  18:58

Everybody. Everybody knows Izzy grow. Now, to attain a reputation, you can’t get mixed up. I’m not going to get mixed up. I’m a tough guy. I walk in the garden, I walk in, I got. That you? See? You’re walking with pride, with dignity. Nobody can argue with you, you understand? I wash up before I go. I comb my hair, you understand? I don’t tell anybody my trouble. They know, understand? I live right. I behave myself. I’m aboveboard. I’ll never do nothing to make you feel ashamed of me. Understand? I’m forthright.

IZZY GROVE  ·  19:40

Whatever is on my lung is on my tongue. I don’t kid you. I don’t invent stories. I don’t need no money. I need friends, understand? I need friends. I need somebody I can lean on a shoulder. Sure, if I wanted to. I can go ahead and work for 40 or 50 bookmakers and ticket hustlers. You can’t do that because I’ll tell you why. If I get pinched. See, I’m licensed, bonded, and fingerprinted. When I got my license, to book acts. You have to be licensed.

JOSH ALAN FRIEDMAN  ·  20:22

You say if you get a pension, then what? If I get pinched, you’re out.

IZZY GROVE  ·  20:25

Because you can’t be a tough guy. You can’t…

NARRATOR  ·  20:30

I made the rounds with Izzy. We stop before the Actors’ Temple. When the light is on, the rabbi is in. He’s not the easiest guy to get along with, says Izzy. We stop before the Edison Hotel, where Oh! Calcutta! is playing its endless revival for tourists. Izzy ran Lonely Hearts dances here at the ballroom. All the fighting champs stayed at the Edison. It was three blocks from the old garden. Izzy says he created the over-28 division of dance nights for Lonely Hearts at the Edison Ballroom.

NARRATOR  ·  21:02

A coterie of elder bellhops surround the Ghetto Avenger in the lobby of the Edison Hotel.

GROUP CONVERSATION  ·  21:08

Izzy, I didn’t have any money. What’s your next plan? Next plan? Between you and I. Now where’s Jeff? What’s your next plan? I agree with you. Stop. Too much sex. He married a young… Yeah, he married a young boy. He had the Lincoln Hotel. Right. He married her. Yeah, but where’s she at today? Huh? Where’s she at today? Well, I wish I could be. Who’s that?

NARRATOR  ·  21:32

I’m going to say aloud the conversation, which is a bit muffled here. How long you know Izzy Grove? Izzy asks, the shortest one with a carbuncle on his nose. 25, 30 years answers the bellhop. We go back at least that long. What fighters have we seen go through this lobby? Another bellhop inquires, then answers himself. Jack Dempsey, Max Baer, Boomer Wilson, Benny Leonard. We seen them all. What killed Max Kramer? asks the pimple-nose hop. Between you and I. Now where’s gentlemen? Aggravation, answers Izzy. No, too much sex.

NARRATOR  ·  22:09

A chippy over the old Lincoln Hotel. Boomer to Boomer to Boomer goes the little bellhop, smacking his fist. This is my family. These are my friends. On a stand? says Izzy. A hanky to his eye.

IZZY GROVE / MONTAGE  ·  22:21

Gentlemen, you deem me the privilege of being in your company. I live by… He said that being a tough guy is shallower than a racket guy. My wife is Izzy. If you want to be suave, do it the right way. Behave yourself and people be pleasant. I quit bunking up because I couldn’t fight no more. I lost little one in the stock market and I crashed in 1929. I had no desire. My self-respect is not for sale. My self-respect is not for sale. My self-respect is not for sale.

NARRATOR  ·  23:02

I keep repeating that even though nobody ever asked. But was it? Decades after Tales of Times Square came out, I started to wonder about the ghetto avenger. Why did my old boxing coach, who had once been Joe Louis’ corner man, turn his head when I asked about Izzy Grove? The boxing racket was run by gangsters from Murder Incorporated fixing the betting odds. Could they have wined and dined Izzy with movie stars at night clubs and fixed him up with blonde, blue-eyed shiksas,

NARRATOR  ·  23:29

the kind of which he’d never seen on the Lower East Side? Promised him all the dough in the world? Promised him a championship if he just took one dive first? Let himself be knocked out, lead with his chin so that he ended up with his face broken in three places? And that everybody who saw it knew it? That he took a dive? And then as he lay bleeding, was told to get lost by the mobsters who set him up? Well, that’s one urban myth that I heard. Pure hearsay.

NARRATOR  ·  23:59

We’ll never know. But here’s Izzy all these years later, still mourning the loss of his pride and dignity. Izzy was going to show me his scrapbook of Damon Runyon articles. But he became paranoid when I tried to reach him next, didn’t want to meet him. I couldn’t find him. I never heard from or about him again.