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Grand Olympic Auditorium
The Grand Olympic Auditorium is a former sports venue in southern Downtown Los Angeles, California. The venue was built in 1924 at 1801 South Grand Avenue, now just south of the Santa Monica Freeway. The grand opening of the Olympic Auditorium was on August 5, 1925, and was a major media event, attended by such celebrities as Jack Dempsey and Rudolph Valentino. One of the last major boxing and wrestling arenas still in existence, the venue now serves as a worship space for a Korean-American evangelical church, Glory Church of Jesus Christ.
Seating capacity in the 1920s and 1930s was 10,400. In 1936 it had more gate entries than Chicago Stadium and Madison Square Garden combined, and had about double the ticket sales of rival Hollywood Legion Stadium.
Throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s it was home to some of the biggest boxing, wrestling, and roller derby events.
The Auditorium was leased by the 1932 Summer Olympics Organizing Committee for a very nominal sum sufficient to cover expenses, for the purpose of conducting the training and competitions of the boxing, wrestling and weightlifting events of the Games. At the time it was the largest indoor venue in the United States.
It has become somewhat of a landmark for boxing history. Charles Bukowski wrote about the Olympic: "even the Hollywood (Legion Stadium) boys knew the action was at the Olympic. Raft came, and the others, and all the starlets, hugging those front row seats. the gallery boys went ape and the fighters fought like fighters and the place was blue with cigar smoke, and how we screamed, baby baby, and threw money and drank our whiskey, and when it was over, there was the drive in, the old lovebed with our dyed and vicious women. you slammed it home, then slept like a drunk angel."
The 1960s and 1970s were a major boom period for the Olympic, as major boxing and wrestling events were held at the arena every other Friday night, as well as being the home to the Roller Games Los Angeles T-Birds.
The arena closed its doors in the mid-1980s when promoter Mike Le Bell discontinued his weekly wrestling shows due to low attendance figures when the boom of the professional wrestling era began. This was when the wrestling scene shifted from Los Angeles to Dallas' World Class, Minneapolis' AWA, Jim Crockett Promotions Mid-Atlantic/NWA, and Stamford's WWF, now known as the WWE.
In the early 1980s Golden Voice productions began promoting Punk Rock concerts at the Olympic Auditorium. Some the biggest names in the punk scene, Public Image, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, U.K.Subs, Discharge, to name a few. If you were a Punk Rocker in Los Angeles during the 1980s, you most likely went to a show at the Olympic Auditorium.
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Grand Olympic Auditorium
The Grand Olympic Auditorium is a former sports venue in southern Downtown Los Angeles, California. The venue was built in 1924 at 1801 South Grand Avenue, now just south of the Santa Monica Freeway. The grand opening of the Olympic Auditorium was on August 5, 1925, and was a major media event, attended by such celebrities as Jack Dempsey and Rudolph Valentino. One of the last major boxing and wrestling arenas still in existence, the venue now serves as a worship space for a Korean-American evangelical church, Glory Church of Jesus Christ.
Seating capacity in the 1920s and 1930s was 10,400. In 1936 it had more gate entries than Chicago Stadium and Madison Square Garden combined, and had about double the ticket sales of rival Hollywood Legion Stadium.
Throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s it was home to some of the biggest boxing, wrestling, and roller derby events.
The Auditorium was leased by the 1932 Summer Olympics Organizing Committee for a very nominal sum sufficient to cover expenses, for the purpose of conducting the training and competitions of the boxing, wrestling and weightlifting events of the Games. At the time it was the largest indoor venue in the United States.
It has become somewhat of a landmark for boxing history. Charles Bukowski wrote about the Olympic: "even the Hollywood (Legion Stadium) boys knew the action was at the Olympic. Raft came, and the others, and all the starlets, hugging those front row seats. the gallery boys went ape and the fighters fought like fighters and the place was blue with cigar smoke, and how we screamed, baby baby, and threw money and drank our whiskey, and when it was over, there was the drive in, the old lovebed with our dyed and vicious women. you slammed it home, then slept like a drunk angel."
The 1960s and 1970s were a major boom period for the Olympic, as major boxing and wrestling events were held at the arena every other Friday night, as well as being the home to the Roller Games Los Angeles T-Birds.
The arena closed its doors in the mid-1980s when promoter Mike Le Bell discontinued his weekly wrestling shows due to low attendance figures when the boom of the professional wrestling era began. This was when the wrestling scene shifted from Los Angeles to Dallas' World Class, Minneapolis' AWA, Jim Crockett Promotions Mid-Atlantic/NWA, and Stamford's WWF, now known as the WWE.
In the early 1980s Golden Voice productions began promoting Punk Rock concerts at the Olympic Auditorium. Some the biggest names in the punk scene, Public Image, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, U.K.Subs, Discharge, to name a few. If you were a Punk Rocker in Los Angeles during the 1980s, you most likely went to a show at the Olympic Auditorium.
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