Max Levy -- Brooklyn History
Max Levy, Professor Mac Levy. Brooklyn Eagle, 1903

Read Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6 of this story.

On New Year’s Day, 1897, Brooklyn’s premiere physical culturist, Professor Mac Levy, received a late holiday gift from the fitness gods.

That evening he was at the Union League Club, on Dean and Bedford Avenues, giving the membership a lecture and demonstration of his journey from a consumptive and puny teenager to a fit and super strong modern day Hercules. Afterwards, he had planned to join friends downtown for some New Year’s Day cheer.

They all met near the Elks Club on Schermerhorn Street, after which Mac Levy was headed for the trolley that would take him to his home on Union Street.

Because it was New Year’s Day, and because it was cold and miserable out, the trolley was nowhere to be found. The Professor was no longer in a good mood. He was walking up Court Street and had almost reached Union when two men stepped out from behind a building and demanded his money.

It was late, and cold, and the police patrol was nowhere around, and he had been made to walk home. The old Max Levy would have handed his money over, and prayed he got home in one piece. Professor Mac Levy, the “young Hercules” whispered a prayer of thanks for this gift, and got busy.

As he later told the Brooklyn Eagle, “When those two fellows jumped out on me I never felt more in the humor for a little exercise in my life. Just as one of them came for me, I stretched out my right and he fell as limp as a rag on the snow, and I caught the second ruffian, who was coming at me, an uppercut under the jaw that threw him back on his companion as the latter was attempting to rise.”

“Where were the police during this time?” the reporter asked. “Oh,” Levy said, “they were anywhere but where they should have been.

After the affair was all over and I had the two robbers reduced to a pretty meek and docile condition, an officer came running up and while I held them, he turned in the call which brought a couple of patrolmen to the spot and between them they were able to march the two highwaymen to the Third Precinct house, where they were locked up.”

Professor Levy was asked if he would press charges in court the next day. “I wouldn’t be bothered with that,” he said. “I got my satisfaction from them and some good, healthful exercise besides. They came looking for ‘something for nothing’ and they got it. So did I and I guess the account is square.”

I would imagine that as soon as that story hit the press, the Professor saw a line of new clients outside of his physical fitness gymnasium. You can’t pay for great press like that, and as a showman, the good Professor knew that better than anyone.

We met Professor Mac Levy last time in our look at the late 19th century physical fitness craze. He was born Max Levy in 1873, to a well-to-do Brooklyn Jewish family. He really had been a weak consumptive child, and through diet and exercise, had conquered his illnesses and had built himself up into a fine physical specimen.

By 1897, he had opened a gym, which spread to at least two other locations, including the first gym at the Hotel St. George, and began collecting clients and training them. He also trained boxers, giving them lessons in speed and agility beyond brute strength.

The mugging incident was but one of the many stories the papers would tell about Mac Levy. He was a frequent topic in the papers, as he lectured everywhere in the Brooklyn/Queens and Long Island area. By the turn of the century, he had quite a reputation, a good following, and some celebrity clients.

He was a tireless self-promoter, appearing in vaudeville shows to make money, spread his fame, and advertise his fitness centers. He was billed as Professor Mac Levy, the great young strongman; able to life great weights and perform other acts of strength and daring. He was quite popular.

One of his celebrity clients was the great restaurateur Charles Delmonico, of Delmonico’s fame. He was suffering from tuberculosis and in 1900 began working with the Professor to regain his health. Mac Levy went out to Babylon, Long Island regularly to work with his client throughout that summer.

Delmonico was so improved that he was able to go out west to Colorado for his health, and was in the middle of arranging to have the Professor join him the next summer when he died. From all accounts, the Delmonico family credited Mac Levy for giving Charles that last year.

Mac Levy had great success in Long Island, opening fitness centers in some of the beach communities. He was, of course, an avid swimmer, which would also be important to his career. But the best thing that happened to him on the beach took place in Brooklyn, at Bath Beach.

In the summer of 1898, he was at the Avoca Villa pier, when a cry that someone was in trouble in the water went out. A woman was drowning in the ocean, near the pier. He immediately ran into the water, swam out to the struggling woman, and rescued her. Her name was Lillian Edna Frank. A year later, Lily, as she was known, became his wife.

By 1900, the Mac Levy gymnasium at the Hotel St. George was in full swing. A description in a Brooklyn Eagle publication with listings of all kinds of Brooklyn businesses described the business this way: “Hotel St. George Gymnasium and Turkish Baths.

The unique gymnasium and physical culture department is managed by Professor Mac Levy, and is the blend of complete gymnasium, swimming pool, physical culture and Turkish bath equipment in conjunction with a hotel.

There is ladies’ day on Tuesday and Friday morning, and the rest of the week is for gentlemen. The gymnasium is well fitted with all the modern appliances and a handball court.”

“The pupil is put through a thorough course of scientific training of the most approved character, and after, he is taken in charge by an expert shampooer, and is thoroughly massaged and rubbed in the steam or hot room at his option, then into the swimming pool. In each of these departments, he is carefully watched to see that it is not overdone.

The needle shower and shampoo rooms are of the latest pattern. The reading, lounging and smoking rooms, as well as the barber shop, are very cozy. Professor Mac Levy has many physicians who are his pupils. This gymnasium is the only private institution in New York of its kind for private instruction. Boxing lessons are given under an expert.”

The St. George was one of the first hotels to have an indoor swimming pool. Mac Levy’s gymnasium became THE place to learn to swim. In June of 1904, the General Slocum disaster in the East River occurred, where over a thousand people died as the excursion ship burned near Hell Gate. Most of them were women and children.

They drowned in the waters of the East River, in part, because most people of that day did not know how to swim, or how to not panic in the water, and keep afloat.

Everyone now wanted to learn how to swim, so Mac Levy devised new methods of teaching swimming. He utilized them at his various locations, including at the St. George. Some teachers believed in the old ways – dump people in deep water, make sure they don’t drown, show them how to swim, and eventually, they’ll figure out how to stay afloat. Or not. That made no sense to him.

He realized that the biggest impediment to learning how to swim was a fear of sinking. Women especially, with all of the voluminous clothing that went into a bathing costume dragging them down, were afraid to put their faces in the water, and float.

He built a special portable tank that had a pulley system and tracks. A pupil was harnessed in, and was able to be suspended at swimming level in the water.

They would then learn different swimming strokes and kicks, which they could practice without sinking. They learned how to be comfortable in the water, with the sides of the face submerged, learning how to breath correctly between strokes, move the head in and out of the water, and all of the other technical aspects of swimming.

When the pupil was comfortable and adept with his or her form, and being in the water, the harness was lowered, and the swimmer was actually staying afloat on their own. If they struggled or panicked, they were still harnessed and could be lifted out of the water. By the time the program was finished, they were freely paddling around the pool like champions.

It was a simple and effective way to teach swimming, and it had never been done before. New Yorkers did not want to be afraid to go on pleasure boats, or even cross the rivers on the ferries. Needless to say, the swimming classes at the St. George and other Mac Levy locations with pools were sold out.

Next time: Professor Mac Levy helps apprehend a front page murder suspect, and the continuation of the Mac Levy story.

(Photo: Learning to swim, Brooklyn Eagle article, 1904)

GMAP

Professor Mac Levy. Promotional button, 1899. Hake's Collectables website
Professor Mac Levy. Promotional button, 1899. Hake’s Collectables website

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