Eliot Scher, an avid train enthusiast, is the proud owner of an impressive model train collection. His basement is a treasure trove of Pullmans, sleepers, locomotives, trestles, and train yards. Chugging trains rumble through miniature cityscapes and small villages; trains weave through pastoral countrysides; through dark tunnels, and over still blue water. His basement is everything trains.
But there are three valuable art pieces hanging on his wall which he treasures above all else. ?The artist who created these amazing pen-and-ink pieces is the Michelangelo of train-art,? he says.
The artist he refers to is the legendary, almost mythic, boxing scribe?Malcolm ?Flash? Gordon.
Malcolm ?Flash? Gordon, a small gnome-like man who sported a long wild ponytail, surfaced in the late 1960s selling his underground boxing newsletter, ?Tonight?s Boxing Program.? Flash could be found hawking it outside Madison Square Garden on fight nights, usually on the corner of 8th and 33rd Street, next to the then-named Felt Forum?without a legal permit.
His newsletter quickly became the most sought-after boxing reading material because it told the harsh truth. Flash Gordon was an intrepid muckraker unafraid to expose the dark murky secrets of professional boxing. In 1977, he reported on the fixed ABC TV United States tournament promoted by Don King (who he referred to as ?Dung King?) and Ring Magazine. His coup helped to uncover this scandal, yet garnered Flash little credit and no money. Flash also was the sole strident voice reporting extensively on the Harold Smith?s MAPS promotions that embezzled $21.5 million from Wells Fargo Bank?the largest such bank theft in U.S. history.
Johnny Bos, one of Flash?s staff-writers said, ?Fight fans were so ravenous for Flash?s newsletter, they would rush outside the Felt Forum on fight nights just to buy it, then leave without attending the rest of the show.?
Today, Flash Gordon?s pen-and-ink artwork, commands the same respect and veneration as ?Tonight?s Boxing Program? did then.
Eliot Scher says, ?My father worked for the transit authority, hence my interest in trains. When I was seven years old, my father would flash his railroad pass and the conductor would allow me to hop up into his train.? Scher points to a 3 x 4 foot glass-encased, art piece hanging on the wall. ?Flash actually drew this exact engine I once hopped into as a seven-year-old boy in Sunnyside Gardens, Queens!?
When Scher spotted this art piece at a train show, he hopped again?and quickly bought it.
Years later, Scher began to fully appreciate the detail and sophistication of Flash Gordon?s art. ?I did some research, found his phone number, and called him up.?
?You?re lucky I answered,? said Flash. ?Normally I don?t answer my phone.?
?I told Flash I had one of his pieces and thought it was the best railroad-art I?d ever seen, and I?d like to meet him and have him sign it.?
??No, I don?t do that,? Flash said.
?I told him I?d be happy to buy him lunch, just be kind enough to sign his wonderful artwork.
??Naw, my art is no good,? he said.
?Flash deflected any praise that I tried to heap upon him. He would have none of it. During our phone conversation, he was polite, but he always downgraded himself. I don?t know why. Maybe it was insecurity, or life had been cruel to him, or he was crazy.
?Flash explained how he dropped out of art school many years ago?I think it might have been Juilliard. That?s when he was still doing his train-art. But he said he couldn?t make any money with it. So, what I have here on my wall might be the last artwork he ever created.
?I never met Flash?couldn?t get to first base with him. He said he was living in an apartment, collecting magazines. I tried to meet him several times, but was never successful. He was resolute.?
Scher suspects Flash?s pen-and-ink illustrations are extremely valuable. ?I know railroad-art, and I know his stuff is beyond rare. If you see any of his art anywhere else, it?s a miracle.
?In railroad-art, you will never, ever, see anything as detailed as this.?
Flash?s ?Tonight?s Boxing Program? is equally as detailed. He detailed every fighter on every New York City fight card, with photos he took himself in all the New York City boxing gyms, and many in New Jersey. He would describe each fighter?s style?even the four-rounders.
In the fall of 1969, he ventured outside New York to Philadelphia when Russell Peltz began promoting fights at the legendary Blue Horizon.
Scher continues kvelling about Flash?s art. ?Let me show you Flash?s level of artistic detail. ?This art piece is the Sunnyside Gardens train yard?but it?s much more than that.? He points and grins. ?Look up into that open tenement window?what do you see?? I see the open window, then looking closer, I see a naked woman with her breasts hanging out.
?And look here.? He points to a tiny rat crouched in the bottom right corner. Sketched in the tiny rat?s fur is the Penn Central?s logo. ?Look at the detail?every blade of grass, every brick, every rock, every window!?
Scher continues to emote with vigor. ?No one can do train-art like this unless they know trains, or they are a savant. Flash Gordon is the Michelangelo of railroad-art. His stuff is the epitome of artistic success and achievement. Never will you see the minutia?the tiniest of things?it goes beyond amazing.
?In 1979, I thought I owned Flash?s only piece of art, but I freaked out when I found three more on eBay.? Scher hopped a third time. ?I don?t recall what I paid for them, but it was significantly less than what they were worth.
?I still discover hidden nuggets. His compulsive detail is absolutely maniacal! I don?t think I could capture with my camera what Flash Gordon captured with his pen.?
According to Don Majeski, Flash Gordon was compulsive by nature. He said Flash printed his handmade, mimeographed boxing programs in his tiny apartment on a printing press he had bought with his Bar Mitzvah money.
In early 1980, Flash totally derailed. He had already lost his artistic steam years ago, and now he seemed to have given up his interest in boxing.
Battling the many injustices he saw in boxing took its toll. He seemed to have become frustrated and tired, and his writing became increasingly paranoiac, pessimistic, and dark. He stopped printing his ?Tonight?s Fight Program.?
For the next 30 years Flash became a recluse.
Don Majeski asks, ?How does one of boxing?s most important journalists?an artist, a guerrilla warrior, and an important muckraker?become a recluse for 30 years??
Mike Silver, a noted writer and boxing historian who befriended Flash, wrote him letters after he disappeared, but Flash never replied.
Silver offers a possible reason. ?Flash slipped into obscurity because he probably said to himself, ?That?s it. There?s nothing else I can do for the sport of boxing. I quit.??
But no one knows for sure.
Silver says, ?I remember driving Flash home one night after a fight. He told me he was proud that he never made a profit from boxing. To Flash, it was all about the love of the sport. He was passionate about the boxers. Flash was pure. Flash told me he was once offered a boxing position, it might have been with ABC, but he turned it down because he wanted to remain independent.?
One day, Henry Hascup, the president of the New Jersey Boxing Hall Of Fame, received an email from Majeski saying he paid Flash a visit at his residence?41-29 46th Street, Sunnyside, Queens.
Flash?s apartment?2R?which bore his name was padlocked. The porter who worked on the floor informed Majeski that the apartment was vacant.
On or about October 25, 2015, after people noticed a strong odor outside Flash?s apartment, he was found dead in his apartment.
Flash didn?t have any known relatives and was reportedly buried in an unmarked grave at Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island. It took about a month to remove a huge amount of items from his apartment.
The ?Michelangelo of Railroad Art??the ?Intrepid Boxing Muckraker??was 66 years old.
* * *
Malcolm ?Flash? Gordon is boxing?s unsung hero. He should not be lying in an unmarked grave in Staten Island. He should be standing proudly in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, New York.
?WHAT?? explodes Mike Silver. ?The International Boxing Hall of Fame? Flash stood for the truth! Malcolm ?Flash? Gordon standing beside the person who he referred to as ?Dung King? and the corrupt Jose Sulaiman would be the worst insult to a guy like Flash! He?d be spinning in his grave!?
