AL 'BUMMY' DAVIS

EARLY LIFE

Davis grew up in the rough and tough, then-predominantly Jewish Brownsville section of Brooklyn. His father ran a produce pushcart and later owned a candy store during the 1920s, Prohibition days. Davis' job, as a young boy of seven, was to keep lookout for the police and give the alert to his father to hide bottles of whiskey being sold on the sly.

Davis developed into a young man and became known in a neighborhood that was home to Murder, Inc. His two brothers were affiliated with the gang. He concentrated on his boxing.

Davis began boxing at Willie and Charlie Beecher's gym in Brownsville around 1933. At age thirteen, he came under the tutelage of a Jewish trainer, Froike (Frankie) Kane, a former lightweight. At barely fifteen, a year under age, Davis had his first amateur bout under the name Giovanni Pasconi.

LIFE AWAY FROM BOXING

Davis enlisted in the Army in early 1941, where he was sent to Camp Hulen, Texas, and put on desert maneuvers. He was able to travel and continue his boxing career while in the service. He was discharged around August 1943. His only child had been born in 1942, not long after he married his wife Barbara.

In his boxing retirement, around 1945, he bought a neighborhood tavern, "Dudy's", and invested in two racehorses. After a year of ownership he thought of selling the bar and moving the family to Florida.

DEATH

After his Army service and boxing retirement, on November 21, 1945, Davis was drinking beer at his bar Dudy's in Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood around 2:45 a.m. New York had been suffering a crime spree as the number of police serving in World War II had diminished those available on the street to fight crime. Davis was in the process of selling the bar, and was with the new owner Arthur Polansky, a bartender, and an off-duty cop, when four armed robbers walked in. Earlier that night, the armed men had robbed five other taverns. Davis punched one of the robbers in the jaw for speaking rudely to Polansky, and was shot three times, but still tried to chase the other three who sped off in a waiting car. During the short pursuit, he was shot a fatal fourth time, and died outside the tavern at the age of 25.