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A Landmark, Lost and Lamented

posted by Kathleen Holland on July 2, 2008, in Features

By Ted Luzzi

Years ago back in the early seventies I use to drive three or four times a year from Los Angeles to Marin County ( just across the bridge from San Francisco). I grew up in Marin and my parents lived there. (still do!) Back in those days of cheap gas I would take a bunch of buddies, who like me, were going to college in L.A., and drop them off at their destinations on the way as I roared through central California in my new Dodge Charger. The Charger was my gift to myself for having finished two years of military service and having finished my time in the Vietnam war zone with not even a scratch.

It was on one of these trips that one rider wanted to stop in downtown Oakland to go to a newstand that had a unusual book he needed to buy. Oakland! To me, a rather mysterious city with a rough reputation.

However it was there, right in the heart of downtown, between 13th and 14th street that I found boxing heaven in the form of DeLauers news stand! It was a 24 hour a day news store that sold newspapers and magazines from around the world. That first day I got four different types of boxing magazines and a stack of newspapers with boxing results to read. Never, never, had I seen so much boxing information!

In Marin you may have a Ring magazine that you had to ask for from the back like you were buying something unmentionable or something, but here at DeLauers they were in glorious color all kinds of boxing magazines filling the racks! A sign at the front door boasted 6000 different titles. It was amazing, a huge place where you could find anything and everything.

The next decades found me going there again and again to fill up with boxing magazines and also to root through the newspapers for boxing results. Some Saturdays I would wolf down breakfast then take the drive for my day at DeLauers which was about 30 minutes away. I have lots of pleasant memories of standing before the racks wide eyed at the new publications. DeLauers had been in business since 1907 and many, like me, were well to go out of our way to sample the feast of reading it offered. However little by little, like Jackie paper in the song "Puff the Magic Dragon". I came no more. The internet is putting the printed world the way of polar ice caps.

This morning I let out a gasp as I read that after 101 years of business De Laures is closing down "I thought when have I been there last" . It has been well over a year. I will miss it. I have had as many boxing thrills reading there as many have had at Madison Square Garden. I have been to championship fights in Las Vegas, but still rate very high the experiences at DeLauers. I still have hundreds of boxing magazines that I bought there!!! Stacks of old newspapers filled with tales of Ali, Terrell, Giaredello, Griffith ,Ortiz, Chavalo etc are in my garage. However the days of a trip to DeLaures are over. The days of passing point Richamond and pointing to the actual spot Battling Nelson fought are finished. The fun and arguments with friends over what the magazines would say as we got closer, are done. Its a loss far greater than I would have have ever guessed.

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