5 days ago
No Square Footage? No Problem. These Home Gyms Make It Work.
Mario Tarabbia visits the gym about six times a week. But he doesn't have to go far.
When he moved to his 900-square-foot, one-bedroom rental apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he embarked on an ambitious renovation project.
On walls beside his dining room table, Mr. Tarabbia mounted a roughly nine-foot-tall squat rack and a weight tree to hold Olympic weight plates. He added mirrors, a stationary bicycle and a TV, as well as two shelves to hold several pairs of dumbbells.
In a closet near his makeshift gym, he turned an oversize meat freezer, which had no lock, into a cold plunge tub. 'I didn't even think to tell my landlord about all this,' said Mr. Tarabbia, 36, the founder of a software company. 'I was like, well, I'll just ask for forgiveness.' (He moved in 2022 and has been adding gym amenities ever since.)
For many New Yorkers, commercial gyms are like apartments: cramped and exorbitantly expensive. Basic amenities, like operable equipment and clean locker rooms, seem increasingly hard to come by, and crowds at peak times — often just before or after 9-to-5 working hours — can deter even the most motivated of fitness fanatics.
After the Covid-19 pandemic forced gyms in the city to close temporarily, some New Yorkers never went back, opting to create their own gyms at home. These New Yorkers are willing to sacrifice valuable square footage to gym equipment, all in the name of gains.
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