The Gym Nobody Wanted

In 2016, the city council of Brownsville, Brooklyn voted to demolish the old Brownsville Recreation Center on Linden Boulevard. The building was crumbling, its windows shattered, its reputation ruined by years of neglect. Developers wanted the lot for luxury condos. The community board called it "unsalvageable." But Daniel Palomino, a retired boxing coach, refused to let it go. He had trained young men in that gym for thirty years — kids the world had written off, from families crushed by poverty and violence.…