Laurel Garden started life as exactly what its neighborhood demanded: a beer hall. During the 1920s, someone realized that a room built to hold drinkers could also hold spectators, and the building at 457 Springfield Avenue transformed into an arena for boxing and wrestling. Its sister venue, Meadowbrook Bowl, operated as an open-air arena for warmer months. The seasonal arrangement was simple -- Laurel Garden got the winter cards, Meadowbrook got the spring and summer. By 1922, when the arena officially opened for fight nights, Newark was already a city that took its boxing seriously. The venue would spend the next three decades proving why.

The roll call of fighters who competed at Laurel Garden reads like a Boxing Hall of Fame roster. Tony Canzoneri, Mickey Walker, Billy Petrolle, Harry Greb -- all stepped through the ropes there. "Two-Ton" Tony Galento, the 230-pound Newark barkeep who would later knock Joe Louis down in a title fight, launched his career at the arena in both boxing and wrestling. In January 1931, promoter Nick Kline brought in Jack Dempsey for his New Jersey debut -- not as a fighter, but as a referee, lending the arena star power even after the former champion's fists had retired. Benny Leonard, considered one of the greatest lightweights ever, fought there. So did Motee "Kid" Singh, one of the first Indian-born boxers to compete professionally in America.

The arena's golden age arrived with two promoters: Thomas J. "Babe" Culnan and Willie "The Beard" Gilzenberg. Operating under the banner of Laurel Sports Activities, Inc., they revitalized professional boxing in Newark by staging two shows every week -- boxing on Monday, wrestling on Friday. Culnan became the state's most prolific matchmaker. One of his 1936 cards marked the 37th consecutive weekly promotion, setting an all-time record for the venue. The pair brought in rising stars like Tippy Larkin, who entered the ring at 38-2, and staged a heavyweight showdown between Jersey Joe Walcott and Abe Simon in February 1940. But the partnership was not without scandal: in 1934, the State Athletic Commission suspended the fight club after Tony Galento fought an imposter posing as his scheduled opponent, forcing the return of $1,500 in ticket sales.

On April 17, 1950, a young filmmaker named Stanley Kubrick brought his camera into Laurel Garden's dressing rooms. The result was Day of the Fight, a short documentary following Bronx middleweight Walter Cartier through a bout with Bobby James -- one of the earliest works by the man who would direct 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange. Television was reshaping the fight game by then. Willie Gilzenberg, always ahead of the curve, helped pioneer weekly wrestling broadcasts from Laurel Garden on WATV (now WNET), with announcer Fred Sayles calling the action for Channel 13. In December 1952, the arena installed an elaborate thirty-inch Bulova boxing clock -- insured for $10,000 -- that used colored lights, sirens, and buzzers to signal rounds.

A fire damaged the arena on January 12, 1946, temporarily scattering its shows to other venues. Babe Culnan relocated the Saturday night fights to Orange, New Jersey, and 3,000 fans later witnessed Joey LaMotta upset Tony Riccio when Laurel Garden reopened in March. But the arena's days were numbered. One of its final major bouts came on May 30, 1953, when Brooklyn's Joey Giardello defeated Hurley Sandler. The building closed that year and was demolished in the mid-1950s. Nothing remains at 457 Springfield Avenue to mark where champions made their names, where Kubrick found his first subjects, and where Newark spent its Monday nights watching men test their courage under inadequate lighting, in a room that started as a place to drink beer.