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Jimmy Glenn, Owner Of Midtown Bar Jimmy's Corner, Dies At 89 Of Covid-19
By
Sophia Chang
Published May 8, 2020
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By
Sophia Chang
Published May 8, 2020
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Jimmy Glenn, former boxing trainer, owner of the iconic Jimmy’s Corner bar in Times Square, and all-around New York treasure, has died of COVID-19. Glenn, 89, was hospitalized at NYU Langone in mid-April, where he died Thursday.
“He has lived an incredible life, been around some of the most famous and influential people in history. He was never star-struck, but he got to be a part of history,” Glenn’s son Adam told the NY Post.
Originally from South Carolina, Glenn reportedly began boxing in the New York Police Athletic League and “began working as a trainer early in the 1950s, not long after a brief amateur career in which he lost to eventual heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson,” Boxing Scene reported. Glenn was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame in 2002 and the New York Boxing Hall of Fame in 2012.
He opened the Times Square Boxing Club on West 42nd Street — where he occasionally trained his buddy Muhammad Ali — and in 1971 found a spot for his bar two streets over on West 44th Street.
The watering hole grew into a destination, especially for boxing fans who flocked there after fights at Madison Square Garden, Midtown office workers, and the even the post-theater crowd.
His cramped bar was perpetually packed and everything a dive bar should be: dollar bills blanketing the back of the bar as Christmas lights twinkled above, four beers on tap, and on the walls signed photos of the big names who came through, as Glenn recounted in a 2017 WPIX segment:
Frank Sinatra? “Stopped here.”
Michael Jordan? “He was here.”
Sammy Davis Jr? “He was here.”
Robert de Niro? “Robert de Niro hung out here, read a book here, sitting in the corner.”
Beyond reading in Jimmy’s Corner, de Niro also filmed the last frames of Raging Bull in the back of the joint.
And the bar’s jukebox was stocked with music personally selected by Glenn: as a 2016 Serious Eats column tells, his tastes ranged from the Delfonics to Harry Belafonte to Isaac Hayes.
“Nothing gets on there if he doesn't like it,” Adam Glenn said in the WPIX segment.
Jimmy Glenn was known for keeping it real despite his legendary status. Well past the years where he would sling drinks from behind the bar, he would hold court and happily share stories with the patrons and regulars.
“They don’t even think about ‘this is a dive bar’ or whatever — they just come in and have a cheap drink,” Glenn had told WPIX.
“I’m not going to be a billionaire. It’s too late now,” he mused. “So I sell $3 beers.”
The online tributes to Glenn poured in Thursday as fans and friends mourned the man as well as the loss of a slice of New York’s heart.
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Jimmy Glenn
coronavirus
Jimmy's Corner
boxing
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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