Tag: Leon Lucas

LEON LUCAS was born in Camden, New Jersey on September 4, 1901, and in addition to being an Olympic boxer, he founded a well-known South Jersey restaurant.

Donkey's Place, at 1223 Haddon Avenue, does not appear as a bar or restaurant in the 1918-1919 Camden City Directory.

Donkey's Place, a bar and cheesesteak landmark on Haddon Avenue, is alive and well after 61 years of operation by the Lucas family.

It is a bit of Camden in amber now, Donkey's Place is, or maybe a shrine - the dingy bar hung with photos of the founder, his dukes perpetually up; the grill steaming with steaks and onions; the back room still swathed in the original tobacco-colored mural, a sweep of Sahara, its palms chipped and faded from 60 years of wear.

Camden has had its ups and downs in the boxing game, but probably reached its peak so far as performers are concerned when bouts were held at the Haddon Avenue Armory during 1919-20.

Before one of the largest crowds that ever witnessed a boxing shot at the Convention Hall, Vincent Forgione, of Philadelphia. won the referee's decision over Babe McCorgary, of Oklahoma, in the last-half of the double-windup of the all-star benefit, show staged last night by the Coree Mathews-Purnell Post, No. 518. Veterans of Foreign Wars. More than 3500 fans poured through the portals of the Civic enter institution to witness the five eight-round scraps that comprised the night's program of fisticuffs. While the Forgione-McCorgary fracas was anything but thrilling, the remainder of the bouts made up for the lack of thrills in the last set-to.

Successful so far in a comeback campaign launched recently, Joe Bashara, hard-hitting middleweight from Baltimore, will stack up against a tough customer in one of the preliminary bouts at the all-star show arranged by the Matthew Purnell Post 518, Veterans of Foreign Wars, at the Camden Convention Hall next Tuesday.