Famed bar owner and boxing legend, Jimmy Glenn was pronounced dead on Thursday from complications of the coronavirus.
Jimmy Glenn was a boxing trainer and owner of the Timed Square bar Jimmy’s Corner. Glenn’s family shared that he lost the battle against the coronavirus this Thursday.
“A legend of boxing has heard his final bell,” World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman said on Twitter in a tribute to “such a great human being.”
A legend of boxing has heard his final bell. Jimmy Glenn has passed at 90 years of age. One of the first things I will do, whenever it is possible , will be to visit Jimmy’s corner in New York City and pay tribute to such a great human being pic.twitter.com/pwquTByeAc
— Mauricio Sulaiman (@wbcmoro) May 7, 2020
The former trainer and gym owner – who had once trained Muhammad Ali – was hospitalized and suffered from COVID-19 since mid April, his family told The Post.
“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, 39, said.
“He really built something for himself and his family — he built a legacy and a name that will be remembered.”
Glenn was a father of seven. He was battling the virus for a few weeks and succumbed to it at 5:30 am on Thursday at the hospital, with Adam at this side.
Jimmy is a South Carolina native that moved to New York City in the 1940s. He made his own brief attempts in the ring as an amateur – most notably against soon to be heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. Glenn’s amateur record was 14-2, but he realized he was a better teacher than fighter.
Glenn started training boxing in Harlem and set up the famed Times Square Boxing Gym in the ‘70s, where he trained Muhammad Ali whenever he was in town.
For some, he was best known for greeting customers at his Times Square hang-out, which was plastered with boxing memorabilia and was a regular stop for fighters visiting the city.
Jimmy’s Corner drew in crowds of tourists and midtown workers. The bar was known for a sign behind the bar that declared the discussion of politics to be off-limits. Glenn strictly enforced this rule.
One of his fighters who knew Glenn, Monte Barrett, said Thursday that he had “looked to him as my father.”
“Today we lost one of the best human beings in the world,” he said in a moving Instagram tribute.
The Generation Iron Fitness Networks would like to share our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Jimmy Glenn. May he rest In peace.
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