One of the City's Most Storied Bars Has Survived 50 Years in Times Square. Now the Landlord Wants Them Out.
Race is the center of a fight to keep boxing bar Jimmy's Corner alive
Hi there. Today, we’ve got the latest on what’s happening with beloved Midtown boxing bar, Jimmy’s Corner, something we’ve been keeping an eye on since we first reported its troubles a few months ago. Next week, look out for our Monday “Best Dishes” newsletter, where we’ll tell you our favorite things we’ve eaten lately. There, in future newsletters, and sometimes on Substack, you’ll find the new home for daily intel. Thanks for reading and for your support. Have a good weekend. — Melissa McCart, lead editor, Eater Northeast
The storied Jimmy’s Corner in Times Square is a narrow boxing bar with walls covered in old fight posters, photos, and other boxing memorabilia. It’s the kind of place that feels like it’s always been there, because it has, for more than 50 years. Despite that it’s a neighborhood icon, Jimmy’s Corner is fighting to survive: The landlord for all these years — one of the oldest family-run, multi-billion-dollar real estate companies in the city — the Durst Organization is using its resources to push the bar out despite prior agreements, according to Jimmy’s family, so it can sell the property.
Situated between a luxury hotel, apartments, and a high-end Italian restaurant, Jimmy’s Corner is one of the few famous Black-owned bars in high-rent neighborhoods in the city. James Glenn is the legend behind the dive, a Golden Gloves competitor-turned-trainer for the likes of Floyd Patterson, Howard Davis Jr., and a young Mike Tyson. Before his Times Square Boxing Club closed, it hosted Muhammad Ali, Ray Mancini, and Salvador Sanchez, among others. Glenn died of COVID-19 on May 7, 2020, at 89 years old. His son, Adam Glenn, runs the bar now. He went to Harvard Law and is the youngest of Glenn’s seven children; he took a leave of absence from corporate law to help his father run the bar after his mother died.
For Adam, this fight is about his father’s legacy — and if Jimmy’s Corner has to move, doing so with dignity, and with some money in hand that would allow it to rebuild. It’s also about the workers, his community, and a place where he grew up and that he loves. “I don’t like the idea of a world where there is no Jimmy’s Corner,” he says.
Jimmy’s Corner isn’t just fighting for itself. In a city where rents keep climbing, and the economics increasingly favor luxury condos over neighborhood bars, they’re becoming an endangered species. In recent years, Manhattan has lost dives like Billymark’s West, the Chelsea institution that served regulars for 68 years before closing in June 2024. Another spot, the Boiler Room, the East Village gay dive, spent three years fighting its own landlord before it lost and closed after 34 years. Both say they’re planning to open elsewhere.
Unlike those scenarios, race is also at the center of Jimmy’s fight. According to the lawsuit, when the landlord first attempted to terminate the lease in late 2023, the Durst property manager, Ben Mexhuani, told Adam that other tenants had complained that a significant number of Jimmy’s Corner’s patrons were congregating in front of the business and near neighboring buildings. Adam pointed out that customers of other Durst-owned businesses also congregated outside. Mexhuani’s response, according to the lawsuit: the people from those businesses “don’t look like Jimmy’s Corner’s customers.” No complaints were ever communicated to the bar about any other groups of patrons.
Jimmy’s Corner (technically, 140 West 43rd Street Tavern Inc.) sued Royal Realty Corp. and Eastern Pork Products Company LLC, both Durst affiliates, last December with an amended complaint in January. It accuses the defendants of discrimination, fraud, and bad faith going back more than a decade. The lawsuit seeks at least $1.5 million in damages and a declaration that the termination clause is void, on grounds of racial discrimination under New York State and City human rights laws, breach of the covenant of good faith, fair dealing, and more.
The case is working its way through both the New York State Supreme Court and the Housing Court division of the Civil Court of the City of New York. Resolution could take months, possibly years. In the meantime, Jimmy’s intends to stay open.
How they got here
The trouble starts with a clause buried in a 2010 lease modification. It gave the landlord the right to terminate Jimmy’s Corner’s lease if James Glenn died or became disabled. According to the lawsuit, Glenn — 80 years old at the time, with no lawyer and no formal education beyond the seventh grade — was never told the clause was in there.
After Glenn died in 2020, the Durst affiliates didn’t invoke the clause. They kept accepting rent for five years, including 18 months when the bar was completely closed during the pandemic. Jimmy’s Corner argues in the lawsuit that, by doing so, they waived the right to use the clause.
Now the defendants allegedly want to use it anyway — because, according to the complaint, they want to sell the building along with an adjacent lot at 136 West 44th Street. As of January 2026, they had no buyer and no pending transaction. Eater has reached out to the Durst Organization for comment.
A termination clause
The Glenns and the Dursts weren’t strangers. James Glenn considered Seymour Durst — and later Seymour’s son Douglas, who took over the company — as extended family, Adam confirmed. He socialized with Douglas’s children, Helena, Anita, and Alexander, from the early 1970s until James Glenn’s death.
By 2010, when Glenn signed the lease modification containing the termination clause, he was already showing early signs of cognitive impairment, according to the lawsuit. He would be formally diagnosed with dementia following a stroke in November 2013. According to the complaint, neither Douglas nor Helena Durst told him the modification contained anything different from his previous leases.
The situation got worse in 2019, when the parties met to negotiate a third lease modification. According to the lawsuit, Douglas Durst demanded to speak with James Glenn alone — by then 89 years old and suffering from dementia — without Adam in the room. After that meeting, James Glenn allegedly told his son, “Douglas told me we’re going to be alright, and they’ll take care of us, but Douglas doesn’t want to negotiate this anymore.” No further negotiations took place.
A broken promise
According to the lawsuit, when the landlord first tried to terminate Jimmy’s lease in late 2023, they backed down — but only after demanding that Adam hire security, install cameras, and ensure no incidents occurred anywhere near the building, whether or not customers were involved. According to the lawsuit, no other tenants in the defendants’ portfolio faced similar requirements, such as the nearby restaurant, Osteria al Doge. Adam complied. He’s been paying for security ever since.
In November 2024, according to the lawsuit, a representative of the Durst Organization named David Neil told Adam the defendants were considering selling the building and assured him the bar could stay until any sale closed — and if no sale happened, the lease would hold.
Six months later came another termination letter. A second followed in September 2025, stating the lease would end on November 30, 2025. Jimmy’s Corner filed suit the following month.
Adam says he has done everything he can to keep the promises made between his family and the Dursts, referring to early face-to-face negotiating agreements.
“We didn’t want this fight, but we’re not afraid of it. We will not give up until we reach a resolution that is right and fair,” he says. “We intend to always have a Jimmy’s Corner in New York.”
I was a bar maid for 2 years at Jimmy's corner while I was going to Fordham university and working my way in theater. Jimmy was a man of his word. A great boss and a kind and fair person. I saw him right after Swanee died to pay my condolences. I hope the outcome is what you want Adam. His legacy needs to live on. D