Boyle's Thirty Acres was a large wooden bowl arena in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was built specifically for the world heavyweight championship bout between Jack Dempsey of the United States and Georges Carpentier of France on July 2, 1921. It held approximately 80,000 fans and was built at a cost of $250,000. It was situated around Montgomery Street and Cornelison Avenue, on a plot of marshland owned by John F. Boyle. [1]
Tex Rickard, the promoter of the bout, initially wanted the fight to take place at the Polo Grounds in New York City. However, Nathan Lewis Miller, the governor of New York, opposed prizefighting and indicated that he did not want a Dempsey-Carpentier bout to be held in New York State. After a number of offers from other promoters, Rickard settled on a proposal from Frank Hague, the mayor of Jersey City. Hague obtained a parcel of land owned by John P. Boyle, a paper box manufacturer. The site was once the home of the Jersey City baseball team. The actual size of Boyle's land was 34 acres (140,000 m2). The octagonal structure was built using 2,250,000 feet (690,000 m) of lumber. The arena covered 300,000 square feet (28,000 m2) and during construction had the services of 500 carpenters and 400 laborers. C.S. and J.W. Edwards were the contractors. Construction started on April 28, 1921 and was completed a few days before the fight. The arena was initially due to hold 50,000 fans. However, the demand for the international extravaganza was so enormous that Rickard had to expand the arena to hold a capacity of around 80,000 to 90,000 fans. It had the greatest seating capacity of any amphitheatre ever built. In the contest between Dempsey and Carpentier, the strength and power of Dempsey was too much for the Frenchman, [2] who was knocked out in the fourth round, with a broken thumb. [3]
Boyle's Thirty Acres was used for a number of boxing cards after the Dempsey–Carpentier bout. On Labor Day, 1921, Rickard promoted a card headlined by four champions - Johnny Wilson, Panama Joe Gans Mike McTigue and Johnny Buff. [4] On July 27, 1922, the lightweight champion Benny Leonard recorded a newspaper decision win over Lew Tendler. Luis Ángel Firpo earned a title shot at Dempsey by knocking out ex-champion Jess Willard in the eighth round before a paid attendance of 75,712 on July 12, 1923. Firpo had less luck in 1924 when he was defeated by Harry Wills before 70,000 fans. Other notable fighters to have fought in Boyle's Thirty Acres were Tiger Flowers, Paul Berlenbach, and James J Braddock [5]
By 1927, most major title bouts in the New York area were being held either at Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds. Rickard announced that the wooden arena would be demolished and in June 1927 the wrecking ball brought the short history of Boyle's Thirty Acres to an end.
By 1952, the site of Boyle's Thirty Acres had become a Jersey City housing project named Montgomery Gardens. After over 50 years of use, the project began to be emptied and the Jersey City Housing Authority planned to demolish the buildings in order to build mixed-use housing. [6] Three of the six buildings were imploded in August 2015, and one was rehabilitated and converted to senior housing. [7] [8]
Georges Carpentier was a French boxer, actor and World War I pilot. A precocious pugilist, Carpentier fought in numerous categories. He fought mainly as a light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908 to 1926. A French professional champion on several occasions, he became the European heavyweight champion before the First World War. A sergeant aviator during the Great War, he was wounded before returning to civilian life. He then discovered rugby union, playing as a winger.
William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey, nicknamed Kid Blackie and The Manassa Mauler, was an American professional boxer who competed from 1914 to 1927, and reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. A cultural icon of the 1920s, Dempsey's aggressive fighting style and exceptional punching power made him one of the most popular boxers in history. Many of his fights set financial and attendance records, including the first million-dollar gate. He pioneered the live broadcast of sporting events in general, and boxing matches in particular.
Luis Ángel Firpo was an Argentine boxer. Born in Junín, Argentina, he was nicknamed The Wild Bull of the Pampas. He was the first Latin American in history to challenge for the world heavyweight title. His bout against Jess Willard set a world record for boxing attendance at the time. His 1923 heavyweight title fight against Jack Dempsey was named Ring Magazine Fight of the Year for 1923.
Boxing in the 1920s was an exceptionally popular international sport. Many fights during this era, some 20 years away or so from the television era, were social events with many thousands in attendance, both men and women.
James Walter Braddock was an American boxer who was the world heavyweight champion from 1935 to 1937.
Jess Myron Willard was an American world heavyweight boxing champion billed as the Pottawatomie Giant. He won the world heavyweight title in 1915 by knocking out Jack Johnson.
Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Ángel Firpo was a boxing match and one of the most significant events in sports of the era. It was the first time that a Latin American challenged for the world heavyweight title. The bout was named Ring Magazine Fight of the Year for 1923. The painting Dempsey and Firpo by George Bellows, showing Firpo knocking Dempsey out of the ring, is an iconic piece of Americana.
George Lewis "Tex" Rickard was an American boxing promoter, founder of the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL), and builder of the third incarnation of Madison Square Garden in New York City. During the 1920s, Tex Rickard was the leading promoter of the day, and he has been compared to P. T. Barnum and Don King. Sports journalist Frank Deford has written that Rickard "first recognized the potential of the star system." Rickard also operated several saloons, hotels, and casinos, all named Northern and located in Alaska, Nevada, and Canada.
Jack "Doc" Kearns was an American boxer and boxing manager. He was born on a farm in Waterloo, Michigan to Phillip H. McKernan and Frances M. Knauf, daughter of German immigrant and Waterloo, Michigan, settler Peter Knauf. His father was the son of Irish immigrants Philip and Amelia "Ann" McKernan and is noted as being "among the early pioneers in the Northwestern Territories of Montana, Idaho and Washington."
Bill Brennan was an American boxer who fought and lost to World Heavyweight Champion Jack Dempsey in a well attended title fight that ended in a twelfth-round knockout on December 14, 1920, in Madison Square Garden. He lost to Dempsey for the first time in a non-title fight on February 5, 1918, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a sixth-round technical knockout.
Floyd Johnson, nicknamed "The Auburn Bulldog", was an American heavyweight boxer who was known for his stiff punch. His (incomplete) boxing record comes out to: 38 wins, 13 losses, and 11 draws. In 1923, he was considered a leading contender, and described in Time magazine as "possibly the fifth-best heavyweight in the ring." His manager was Alec Greggains. After his boxing career ended, he went into promotion in White Center, Washington. and served as a deputy sheriff in King County, Washington, in the mid-1920s.
Morris "Whitey" Bimstein was an American boxing trainer who would be remembered for his exceptional career and as a cutman to world champions. Though his cutwork was usually confined to only forty seconds between rounds, it amazed doctors for its thoroughness and professionalism.
Gate receipts, or simply "gate", is the sum of money taken at a sporting venue for the sale of tickets.
Joseph Edward Humphreys was an American boxing official and announcer. He was one of the most popular fight announcers from the turn of the 20th century up until the 1930s. In his near 50-year career, Humphreys was estimated to have announced over 20,000 boxing matches and officiated many of the top prize fights of the era as the longtime official ring announcer at the old Madison Square Garden from 1925 up to his death in 1936.
The Jersey City Armory is an armory for the U.S. Army National Guard at 678 Montgomery Street in the McGinley Square neighborhood in Jersey City, New Jersey. Completed in 1937, the armory was designed by chief architect General Hugh A. Kelly of the Jersey City firm of Kelly and Gruzen in the Beaux-Arts style. In addition to being a military training and mustering facility of the New Jersey National Guard, the WPA era armory has long been used as a sports arena, particularly for boxing, basketball, and track and field events, and more recently mixed martial arts.
The Hurley Boxing Law was a law passed in New Jersey in 1918 that legalized boxing in the state for the first time.
The White Heavyweight Championship was a title in pretense created when the "White Hopes" of the time that African-American Jack Johnson was the world heavyweight champion had failed to wrest the title from him after four and one-half years. The first of the Great White Hopes, former world heavyweight champ James J. Jeffries had failed to vanquish Johnson in 1910, leading to an elimination tournament of "White Hopes" in New York City in 1911.
Dempsey is a 1983 television film based on the life of the heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey that starred Treat Williams and Sally Kellerman.
Jack Dempsey vs. Georges Carpentier was a boxing fight between world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey and world light-heavyweight champion Georges Carpentier, which was one of the fights named the "Fight of the Century". The bout took place in the United States on Saturday, July 2, 1921, at Boyle's Thirty Acres in Jersey City, New Jersey.
WJY was a temporary longwave radio station, located in Hoboken, New Jersey and operated by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), which was used on July 2, 1921, for a ringside broadcast of the Dempsey-Carpentier heavyweight boxing match.
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