Description
A terrific behind-the-scenes photograph of Los Angeles boxing history: workers erecting an outdoor boxing ring directly on the playing surface at Gilmore Field, the Hollywood Stars’ Pacific Coast League ballpark near Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. The empty grandstands, scoreboard, temporary ring platform, ladders and enormous banks of overhead lights transform what would ordinarily be the spectacle into something much better—the mechanics of building the spectacle. Gilmore Field opened in 1939 and remained home to the Hollywood Stars through 1957, occupying the celebrated Gilmore/Farmers Market entertainment district alongside Gilmore Stadium and the Pan-Pacific Auditorium.
Boxing was part of that landscape as well. Gilmore hosted major outdoor fights during an era when Los Angeles was one of America’s great boxing cities; Henry Armstrong fought Ceferino Garcia there for the world middleweight championship in 1940, and later cards included fighters such as Art Aragon. Rather than showing the fighters, this photograph catches the ephemeral architecture that made those nights possible—the ring, lights and equipment going up in an otherwise empty ballpark. Today Gilmore Field itself is gone, demolished as the surrounding property gave way to the expansion of CBS Television City.
A great Los Angeles sports photograph precisely because the fight hasn’t started yet—the forgotten work of turning a baseball field into a boxing arena.
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