Joe Frazier’s gym, once a historic boxing sanctuary, crumbles with an uncertain fate

Joe Frazier was a fixer, and he loved nothing more than fixing his gym. It was a sturdy, three-story building near Broad and Glenwood. When he was not training boxers, the former heavyweight champion — universally known as Smokin’ Joe — could be found on his hands and knees, pulling weeds from the grass. Or running phone wires from the third floor to the first. Or replastering a wall.

Everything was cared for. Black-and-white photos of legendary fighters were hung around the ring. Boxers who didn’t feel safe at home, or simply needed a place to stay, kept beds upstairs. Soulful music rang through the speakers: Bobby Womack and Wilson Pickett on weekdays, and gospel on Sundays.

Some called it a mecca. Others called it a sanctuary. But everyone called it home — until it wasn’t.

Frazier lost the gym in 2011. He owed the city about $127,000 in unpaid taxes on the building, and took out a mortgage. The city sheriff sold the property to satisfy a lender, who promptly sold it to out-of-state investors.

The former heavyweight champion died later that year. Under the new owners, the historic gym became a discount furniture store. A bargain couch and a coffee table sat where he once trained for his fights against Muhammad Ali. The photos were gone. So was the music.

“It felt like something was taken from us,” said Kevin Dublin.

Dublin, a 64-year-old mental health counselor who boxed for Frazier in the 1980s, visited the gym one day in early November. What he saw made him sad. The building was vacant, its doors boarded up. There was graffiti scribbled onto the walls, and litter all over the sidewalk.

It felt like something was taken from us.

The weeds that Frazier once plucked were sprouting again, and the big block letters above the windows — “Joe Frazier’s Gym” — were fading fast.

Like many of Frazier’s former boxers, Dublin never thought the gym could get to this point. In 2013, it was added to the national and local historic registries. This dual listing was supposed to prevent “demolition or negative alteration,” according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But it had no bearing on how the building was used.

In 2022, a new company, Broad St Holdings LLC, acquired the gym for $850,000. It has since failed three straight city inspections, from September 2023 to June 2024. Not one has been addressed. According to liens filed by the city’s Law Department, the building’s owner, David Hayon of Jenkintown, has also failed to pay about $26,000 in combined taxes and utility bills linked to the property.

Hayon did not return multiple requests for comment.

As a result of the gym’s building code violations, the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections recently declared the property “unsafe.”

Now, it could face demolition. If the gym continues to deteriorate to the point where it is deemed “imminently dangerous,” the city can step in and tear it down — despite its landmark status.

The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia has been trying to avoid this outcome since 2012.

“We have had no contact with the current owners or the previous owners,” said its director of policy and communications, Hanna Stark. “We did extensive outreach to the former property owners and never heard back from them in any way.

“Unfortunately, this is a problem across the city. You have very unresponsive landlords who sit on properties and don’t do anything with them.”

For 33 years, you could learn as much about throwing a left hook as you could about being an adult in Joe Frazier’s gym. People all over the world descended on 2917 N. Broad St. for a shot in the ring, and a shot at redemption. And Frazier almost always gave them one.

» READ MORE: From the archives: At Joe Frazier's former gym, memories linger

Dublin believes the gym can still bring life to a community that needs it.

“Because his spirit lives in that building,” he said. “I’m not spooked or nothin’, but you can feel his spirit in that place.”

Frazier was not a native of Philadelphia, but he might as well have been. He was born in Beaufort, S.C., in 1944, one of 12 children. His father was a handyman and a bootlegger. His mother picked vegetables for a commercial farm. He moved to New York in 1959, and in 1961 to North Philadelphia, where he quickly found a home at the 23rd Police Athletic League.

The gym, run by a cop named Hammond E. “Duke” Dugent, gave the teenager structure. According to Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier by Mark Kram Jr., it was Frazier’s sister Mazie and her husband, James Rhodan, who encouraged him to go. The 17-year-old had been getting into trouble and they thought Dugent could provide a positive influence.

» READ MORE: Joe Hand and Cloverlay helped Joe Frazier become ‘Smokin’ before Hand started his own career

He provided more than that. The decision to train at the PAL changed Frazier’s life. It was there that he met Yank Durham, the legendary trainer with whom he’d work for the next 12 years.

Under Durham’s tutelage, Frazier became one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. He won the Olympic heavyweight title in 1964, and the world heavyweight title in 1970. His three fights against Muhammad Ali — the Fight of the Century, Super Fight II, and the Thrilla in Manila — were international spectacles. Smokin’ Joe finished his career with 32 wins, four losses, and one draw with 27 knockouts.

Frazier’s celebrity skyrocketed. He became a fixture on television, making appearances on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, and Late Night with David Letterman. He had money, and fame, but wanted to give back. So, in 1975, he purchased the gym from Cloverlay, an investment group that backed him.

» READ MORE: Down went Joe Frazier 50 years ago in a loss to George Foreman that altered lives. Philly would rise again.

At first, it was just a place for him to work out. But Frazier had bigger ideas.

“I keep it here for the boys,” he told Kram. “We got so many. I lose count. Not professionals. Not even some good amateurs. Just neighborhood boys. … One gym like this does more than a whole squad of cops.”

The business was not lucrative. Frazier didn’t charge anyone rent. He didn’t charge a few of his boxers gym fees, either. He’d always give money — which he called “love” — if they needed it. The former heavyweight would much rather have his pupils earning their keep in the gym, rather than on the street.

Dublin learned this firsthand. He met Frazier in the early 1980s. He was 22 at the time, a natural athlete with a lot of potential. But in 1983, Dublin stopped showing up. He realized he could make more money selling cocaine than he could in the ring.

Frazier went looking for him. He found the young boxer at 13th and Cambria one night and asked why he hadn’t been to the gym.

“I have four babies,” Dublin replied. “I’ve got to feed my family. I can’t provide with no trophies.”

“Tell you what,” Dublin recalled Frazier saying. “You get your ass in that gym, and let me worry about the Pampers and milk.”

Frazier began to give Dublin a $350 weekly stipend. He started to fight again, and turned pro in 1985. But in 1986, he suffered another setback: a retinal detachment in his right eye. He underwent surgery, but he wasn’t the same. He joined the Junior Black Mafia and began to sell cocaine again.

Dublin was arrested in 1986 and went to prison for 40 months. While he was gone, Frazier helped take care of Dublin’s children. He’d give them money and send his nephews Rodney and Tyrone to visit.

When Dublin was released in 1990, he returned to the gym. He had medically retired, but Frazier welcomed him without judgment.

“You done?” Frazier asked.

“Yeah,” Dublin responded.

He now works as a mental health and drug addiction counselor at the Behavioral Wellness Center in North Philly. His son, Kevin Jr., is 35 and Frazier’s godchild. Both say the former heavyweight changed their lives.

“When my dad came home, Joe was very adamant about keeping him in the gym, even though he was not competing at the time,” the younger Dublin said. “That had a direct impact on me. It forced my dad to mature. At the time, I was so young, I couldn’t see it clearly. But now I get exactly what Joe was doing.

“My dad could do nothing for Joe Frazier as an athlete anymore. But Joe saw the bigger picture in him, as a father and a husband. And that was pivotal for us.”

There are countless stories like Dublin’s. Scotty Dixon was born and raised in North Philadelphia. He arrived at Frazier’s doorstep in 1990, a vulnerable 18-year-old who just wanted to get in shape. Frazier sensed that Dixon needed some extra love — love, not money, love — so he began to visit him at his house at 29th and York.

My dad could do nothing for Joe Frazier as an athlete anymore. But Joe saw the bigger picture in him, as a father and a husband. And that was pivotal for us.

Dixon described his neighborhood as “rough,” with a lot of gang violence. Those gangs would often try to recruit him. But once Dixon began working with Frazier, all of that stopped.

“They treated me a lot different,” he said. “They knew I could fight, and they knew that Smoke would come to my house sometimes. That gave me a little street cred. They just left me alone. I didn’t have to worry about them anymore.”

When James Denning showed up at Frazier’s gym, he was 14, with an earring in his left ear. “You sure you in the right place?” Frazier joked. Denning was sure. He liked the stability that Frazier provided. So he began to make the trek from West Philadelphia to train.

A few years later, in 1991, Denning was arrested and detained at a juvenile detention center. When he got out, he returned to the gym but deliberately tried to avoid Frazier. He knew the former champion would be disappointed.

One day, when Denning was hitting a heavy bag, he looked to his left to find Frazier 50 feet away. They had a talk. Frazier told him he had a choice about how he wanted to live his life.

“It was like a switch turned on,” Denning said. “You know what? I don’t have to follow the narrative. The movie doesn’t have to play out without me having some say. And that really took ahold of me. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do at the time, but I knew I was going to do something.

“This was a person who had reached the zenith of his profession. He was a celebrity. A boxing legend. Imagine Babe Ruth saying that to you? That’s what it was like for me. But it wasn’t just who he was. It was actually what he said. It crystallized that I really don’t have to follow this preset narrative. If I wanted to be a success, I had everything at my disposal.”

Denning enlisted in the Army in 1995, and stayed for 14 years. He is a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church. He has two master’s degrees and is studying for his third, while pursuing his Ph.D. in archaeology at Amridge University in Montgomery, Ala.

“After a while, Smoke stopped calling me ‘Jailbird,’” he said with a laugh. “I became ‘Jim’ again.”

Denning would spend the night at the gym sometimes, and became close with a young fighter named Richard Slone. Slone was from a hamlet in northwest England, and met Frazier when the former champion was on tour in Europe. He moved to the gym in 1990, at age 16.

It was quite the culture shock, but Frazier helped ease the transition.

“I called home a lot, and he paid massive bills for those calls,” Slone said. “He paid everything to make sure I called on a regular basis. He’d just say, ‘Rich, we got a big one this month. That phone bill, man. Call Mama and let her know you love her.’”

Slone, Denning, Dixon, and other boxers who spent the night would go running at 5 a.m. North Philadelphia was not the safest place for a group of teenagers to be at that hour, so Frazier would drive behind them in his white Cadillac, with his windows rolled down, as he played Bobby Womack on the stereo.

“When we would run in the morning, people that were still out at 5 a.m. would clap and flash their lights,” Slone said. “They’d honk their horns. It was as if we were North Philly’s unofficial boxing team.”

Over time, Slone began to take an interest in art. He’d paint portraits and keep them in his room. Frazier noticed, and introduced him to a journalist from the Ring magazine.

“Maybe you can hire him to do a cover,” Frazier suggested.

The magazine did. And at age 18, Slone was featured in his first major publication. He’s now an artist based in Las Vegas. His work has been shown in galleries and museums all over the world.

“I still have a key to that gym,” Slone said. “That’s not by accident. It’s a reminder of somebody who always gave me a home.”

Frazier died of liver cancer in 2011, at age 67. He never lived to see his likeness on a statue, or his name on a street sign, or any other grand gesture from the place that shaped him. That bothered his family and friends.

What bothered them even more was the city’s decision to embrace its fictional son before its adopted one.

“Rocky was good in the movies, but he wasn’t real,” said Frazier’s nephew Rodney. “You’ve got a real champion, who did things that you saw in the movies, but you don’t give him his props?”

I don’t want my father’s legacy to be ignored. And if you put him down there with the drunks and [expletive] like that … I don’t know if that’s the smart move.

The story of Rocky Balboa was based in part on Frazier’s life. He would run through Fairmount Park and jog up those same steps at the Art Museum. When Frazier first trained at the PAL, he worked as a cowpuncher at Cross Brothers Meat Packers, a slaughterhouse in Kensington. His most famous fights came against a brash, loud, Black man, who many believe inspired the character of Apollo Creed.

The Rocky statue was donated to the city in 1982. Frazier didn’t get his own until 2015 — four years after he died. It stands in the South Philadelphia sports complex, in front of Xfinity Live.

“When you go to Philadelphia, it’s not like, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve got to go see the Joe Frazier statue,’” said Frazier’s son Derek. “I don’t think it’s in a place where it needs to be. I don’t want my father’s legacy to be ignored. And if you put him down there with the drunks and [expletive] like that … I don’t know if that’s the smart move.”

In 2018, the city renamed Glenwood Avenue “Smokin’ Joe Frazier Boulevard.” It happened only after Frazier’s late daughter, Weatta, petitioned for it.

The transition of Frazier’s gym into a furniture store, and eventually a vacant building, only amplified his loved ones’ concerns. They didn’t feel that the gym received the treatment and respect it deserved — especially given how much time, energy, and money Frazier had invested into his community.

By contrast, Ali’s campground in Deer Lake, Pa. — where he trained from 1972 to 1980 — was transformed into a museum in 2018. Mike Madden, the son of the late NFL coach and broadcaster John Madden, noticed that the property was “rotting” and bought it, with the intention of honoring Ali’s legacy. He invested more than $1.1 million into the camp, which now features guided tours, events, and celebrations of the boxing champion’s life.

» READ MORE: Muhammad Ali’s secluded Pa. camp and the fight to save it, led by John Madden’s son

This type of thoughtful rehabilitation is possible for Frazier’s gym, but it would require public funds or a private investor to get involved — and, likely, a new owner. Under Hayon’s ownership, the building has sat vacant since 2022.

Stark, of the Preservation Alliance, said that there are plenty of incentives for owners to sit on buildings that have landmark status. If a property is deemed a threat to public safety and torn down, the city and taxpayers pay for its demolition. And the city doesn’t always see that money returned.

Even after the building is demolished, the owner still retains the property — unless a third party gets involved. Under the state’s Abandoned and Blighted Property Conservatorship Act, courts can appoint outside “conservators” — often not-for-profit organizations — to petition to take over and rehabilitate blighted properties.

It’s unclear who that would be in this case. Smokin’ Joe isn’t here to help anymore. He can’t pull some “love” out of his sock. His family can’t afford to purchase the gym, and neither can his former boxers. So for now they wait, as the weeds continue to grow, and the words “Joe Frazier’s Gym” continue to dim, hopeful that another neighborhood hero will come along.