Blue Horizon: Historic, But Not Quite Historic Enough

When I drive by the Legendary Blue Horizon on N. Broad Street I can't help but wonder: What's the next chapter for such a historic building?

I'm a boxing fan at heart and grew up watching Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis fights on Pay-Per-View. When I got older and became a journalist, I started covering local boxing — which led me to watch countless fights at the Blue Horizon.

Sure, they hardly ran the heat in the winter or the air conditioning the summer, but the sight lines were amazing and the competition was first rate. You may not have ever heard of Lenny DeVictoria or Elad Shmouel, but I watched them fight in 2007 — and the action-packed battle was just as good as any of the Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward fights. (Trust me, it was brutal.)

But the Blue Horizon closed in 2010 and the only visible reminder of its boxing past is a mural featuring Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Larry Holmes and George Forman.

A developer has a plan in place to demolish the facility and build a boutique hotel. But a committee of the city's Historical Commission voted late last week to denote the outside as historic (not the inside.)

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