Since I am both a sports guy and a history guy, I tend to be fascinated by old athletic facilities. I have looked closely at most of the sites of the 1988 Olympics here in Seoul, Dongdaemun Stadium, Mokdong Stadium, World Cup Stadium and Hyocheon Stadium. I realized there was another such place here in the city—Jangchung Gymnasium—and decided to pay a visit.

First, however, what was Jangchung Gymnasium? Its origins can be traced back to 1959 when Syngman Rhee’s government set aside some land at the northeast corner of Namsan Park for military training. But by 1961, it had been given over to civilian purposes as Kim Jong-Su was hired to design a circular steel-frame building capable of holding 10,000 spectators. Jangchung Gymnasium opened in 1963 and served the city well for nearly 50 years. Boxing*, martial arts, ssireum (Korean wrestling), basketball, volleyball and other sports were played there with regularity. It was the site for the judo and taekwondo events for the ’88 Olympics. Interspersed with athletica were artistic presentations—plays, concerts and so forth.

*Kim Ki-Su beat Nino Benvenuti of Italy there in June 1966 to win the world junior middleweight championship, sending 6,500 fans, including President Park, into delirium; Benvenuti thought he got robbed in favor of the local boy.

Oh, but there was more. Jangchung Gymnasium was the site of some strange but significant political events. Recall, if you will, that Park Chung-Hee had engineered a coup in 1961 that put him in the Blue House. After 11 years of military rule which included a couple of rigged elections, Park simply refused to quit. His Democratic Republican Party amended the constitution and put on an “indirect” election at Jangchung Gymnasium in which an electoral college of sorts called the National Council for Unification met behind locked doors. Park had hand-picked all the 2,359 delegates, and got 99.91% of the vote. The incumbent won again in 1978 with similar numbers. On both occasions, the atmosphere outside the gym was less than placid.

Fifteen months later, Park—by nearly all accounts the man most responsible for the Miracle on the Han—was assassinated. But the country still had a long way to go before anything like democracy could take root. In the turbulence of 1987, some of the biggest rallies, protests and confrontations between citizens and the state occurred outside of Jangchung Gymnasium.

With all that history, I just had to see it. On a cool Sunday morning, I took the subway north to Dongguk University Station, climbed the stairs of exit 5 and soon found that Jangchung Gymnasium is no more. It was in the process of being razed. But there is good news in that a modernized version on the same site is due to be completed in October 2013. An artist’s rendering on one of the metal construction walls looked quite nice, for what that is worth. 

Of course, I lingered. I studied the old place from every conceivable angle and pondered all that had gone on there—the games, the artistry, the political chicanery and battles on the adjoining streets. I thought of how Seoul had changed since the gym opened in 1963. I walked up a steep hill to the Shilla Hotel, where many big-shot politicians stay during their visits to Korea. Then I moved across the street to Jangchung Park, stood on 250-year-old Supgyo Bridge and looked at statues erected in honor of a couple of early 20th century Korean liberation activists (Lee Han-Eung and Kim Chang-Suk) before heading back to Gangnam.  

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