Jacobs Beach: The Mob, the Fights, the Fifties

New York in the Fifties was the most interesting and most vibrant city in the world. New York gave the world a couple of other things too: one bloody and brutal but the king of sports, the other simply bloody and brutal. The Fifties were boxing s last real heyday. Never again would the sport be so glamorous or so popular. And that s where New York s other gift to the world the Mob came in.Gangsters have been around for boxing s entire history, but this time it was special. Most of the decade s major fights took place at boxing s spiritual home, Madison Square Garden, and most of the deals that made or ruined the lives of the era s many fine fighters were done on a famous strip of pavement across the road from the Garden: Jacobs Beach. And the man ruling that strip of pavement was a charming Italian murderer called Frankie Carbo.