March 27, 1942

Guest Post by Mike Casey
Before 18,220 fans at Madison Square Garden on March 27, 1942, big Abe Simon stepped into the ring for the final fight of his career. Scaling 255 1/4lbs, he was a massive, bear of a man who had once used his considerable size and muscle on the gridiron. Abe outweighed Joe Louis by nearly 48 pounds, but already knew the dangers of duelling with the Brown Bomber. Just a year before at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, Joe had decked Simon four times and stopped him in thirteen rounds.Coming back for seconds was never a good idea against the prime Louis. But Abe had heart, pluck and a big punch and everyone knew that anything could happen in heavyweight boxing. Simon had knocked out Jersey Joe Walcott in six rounds, beaten Roscoe Toles and drawn with Turkey Thompson. Abe had also waged a thrilling battle of the giants with Buddy Baer, in which he had beaten Buddy severely in the opening round before being stopped in the third.......Louis finished the fight quickly in the sixth round, sending Abe down and out with a final left-right blast. Perhaps Joe had been riled after first snapping Simon to attention with a quick-fire combination in the second round. Big Abe had laughed at him....
copy courtesy of Mike Casey Archives
photograph(added by molovinsky): Abe Simon in corner after fight, with manager Jimmy Johnston

reprinted from December 2012

Heavyweight Championship of the World

On March 21, 1941, my mother's cousin Abe Simon, son a of Jewish egg and butter salesman, fought Joe Louis for the title in Detroit. Lasting 13 rounds, he earned another title shot against the Brown Bomber a year later in Madison Square Garden. After retiring he acted in several movies, including On The Waterfront and Requiem For A Heavyweight.


Administrator's note: I'm reprinting these photo's and captions in a much tighter time frame then originally posted, to give the viewers more of a feel of the Louis era.

reprinted from December 2012

Arena Food Vendor Headlines Paper

A picture of french fries and an article about the chosen food vendor for the arena is the headline today in The Morning Call. The latest arena promotion was again written by Matt Kraus. Actually, there are two seasoned reporters writing these puff pieces, Scott Kraus and Matt Assad. Since the editors of the paper have allowed them to combine their work load, I have decided to combine their names. This way they can better share the fame, or shame, depending on your point of view. In the entire feature story there was one relevant observation, in the last sentence of the article. Albert Abdouche, owner of the Americus property, observed that the arena wants to capture as many of the food dollars as possible, spend on an evening in Allentown by their fans. No surprise there.

The Weigh-In

                                            Madison Square Garden, March 27, 1942
When they met for the first time the previous March, Abe Simon battled Joe Louis for 13 rounds. The Detroit crowd went wild that the Jewish giant from New York could absorb Louis's punches. Louis had the power of Mike Tyson and the finesse of Muhammad Ali. When it was revealed that Simon had fought with a broken hand, the Madison Garden rematch became a big ticket. Louis knocked Simon out in the sixth round. It would be Simon's last fight.
click on photo to enlarge

reprinted from December 2012

Environmental Tokenism Depreciated Bethlehem

Once upon a time the fortunes of Bethlehem were tied to the Steel, now they reside on it's historical appeal. The current flavor of the month with the green crowd is demolishing dams. Regular readers of this blog know how would be governor Pawlowski allowed the Wildlands Conservancy to destroy the Parkway's Robin Hood Dam, and deposit it's rubble around the bridge piers. The dam on the Monocacy creek suffered the same fate last year. While the dam destruction cost Allentown park goers both beauty and sound, Bethlehem lost it most valuable commodity, history. The top photo shows the original Broad Street Bridge, before it was replaced with the current one,  about 100 years ago. The bottom photo shows the same vista, but minus the historic dam. In addition to the lost history, the loss of visual impact is staggering. Bethlehem has suffered a permanent loss from former boy mayor Callahan's poor decision. Three cheers for Easton's Mayor Panto, who told the Wildlands Conservancy to look elsewhere with their dam removal and grant seeking agenda.

the top photo appeared in a Karen Samuels Facebook page. the bottom photo by John Marquette is from the same page. neither one intended the photos as used here.

Allentown, What a Revolting Development

The guy across the top of the post is William Bendix, who played Chester Riley on The Life of Riley. He ended each episode by saying, What a revolting development this turned out to be. That was a television series in the 1950's, but the phrase is appropriate to Allentown today. molovinsky on allentown spends much of it's space on the past, because it was so much better than the present. The Pawlowski Administration and The Morning Call are so focused on the future, because they hope that it's so much better than the present. On Monday afternoon, two teens were apprehended near the high school, waiting for trouble with machetes. Elsewhere, a suspect punched a cop. Our new police chief is driving around getting to know Allentown. Our mayor wanted to use hopeful expectations for this new arena as his ticket out of town. In Chester Riley's world he worked in a booming factory, and his commotions had to do with a neighbor not inviting him to a Sunday picnic. In Allentown, we have never employed people,  smashing your door in. Although this blog shies away from crime stories, we will not sugar coat the revolting development that has become Allentown.