raylawpc wrote:Frank, I read somewhere that the Olympic Auditorium was the only arena in the nation designed specifically for boxing. Have you ever heard that?
Also, was the Hollywood stadium originally an open air arena? Seems like the read that somewhere too.
Tom, I really don't know much about either place before my time, Hap would be the man to know....
From BoxRec Encyclopaedia
"The Hollywood (American) Legion Stadium was one of the two major boxing venues of Los Angeles from the 1920s on, the other being the Olympic Auditorium. It was the most stable and most successful venue in California during the 1920s and 1930s. Its cards were held on Fridays. It opened as an 8,000-seat venue August 12, 1921 under the auspices of World War I veterans, American Legion Post No. 43. It was closed for a short time to add an arched roof over the formerly open-air venue, and reopened Dec. 16, 1921. It once again was closed briefly on July 11, 1923, to sink the boxing ring six feet, increasing the pitch of ringside seats so that all patrons had a good view of the ring, and to add a ventilation system that recycled the air every 10 minutes. According to the Los Angeles Times of the day, the venue then accommodated 5,100 people. (Other sources say the seating was reduced to 4,500.) A second version of this venue opened in late 1938 with a capacity of about 6,300. Black boxers were not allowed to fight here until 1940.
On March 15, 1952, shows moved from the regular Friday night slot to Saturday nights. The reason for the move was the televising of boxing shows from the East Coast on Friday nights, which had eroded attendance and made sell-outs rare. With the move, the Legion Stadium intended to televise their shows as well, showing them locally on television station KECA.
The Hollywood Legion Stadium closed in 1959. At present (2009), it is the Legion Lanes Bowling Alley on Gower Boulevard, up the street from the Paramount Studios."
"One of the most storied venues in boxing history, the "Grand Olympic Auditorium," located at 1801 South Grand Avenue in Los Angeles, CA, USA, opened August 5, 1925 to a crowd of jewel-clad Hollywood film stars, prominent tuxedoed citizens, and other "common" folk. (Then-World Champion Jack Dempsey earlier had shoveled the first pile of dirt for the groundbreaking ceremony.) The original seating capacity was 10,400 (this included "standing-room only" patrons). It had one huge ground floor, with the boxing ring at its center. It also had an enormous balcony that stretched diagonally away in every direction toward the roof. The boxers' dressing rooms and showers were on the southern side of the basement floor.
The Olympic had weekly boxing shows during the 1920s, '30s, and '40s -- usually on Tuesday nights. It later shifted to Thursdays during the 1950s. After the Hollywood Legion Stadium shut down in 1959, the Olympic's shows moved to Fridays and Saturdays, and ran continuously until 1980. The Olympic Auditorium ran spot shows during the early 1980s, before closing later that decade. It had lost much of its luster due to age and the decay of its surrounding neighborhood.
In the late 1980s it was refurbished extensively and its seating capacity reduced to 7,500. The arena reopened for Oscar De La Hoya's WBO super featherweight title fight against champion Jimmi Bredahl in 1994. As of early 2005, it still held boxing shows. In the summer of 2005 it was sold to a Korean-American church group, who renamed it the "Glory Vision Center." As a result, the famed building ended its long, glorious history as a boxing venue. "
, “I’ve never seen a punch like that in my life . . .” 
