May 26, 2015 By Michael Florio
The Long Island City YMCA and Sunnyside Shines have teamed up to host monthly fitness classes under the 7-train.
The YMCA is offering free classes at Lowery Plaza, the public plaza located under the 7-train station at Queens Blvd and 40th Street. The series, aptly called “Fitness under the Subway,” kicked off May 16 with a Zumba class.
Six people attended the first class, according to Kathleen Rahill, the exercise coordinator with the YMCA, although she expects the number of participants to increase as the word gets out.
The next class is scheduled for June 13, followed by sessions on July 18 and August 15. The classes all begin at 12:30pm and are free and open to the public.
The LIC YMCA decided to host the series in Sunnyside to help spread the word about its facility. Rahill said that Sunnyside is a large market for the YMCA, with the majority of its members coming from the neighborhood.
Rahill said that she believes the plaza is a good venue to hold the classes since it generates a great deal of food traffic.
“There are always people coming on and off the train, people walking by with their families and those people driving by,” she said. “Especially with the nice weather people go to the plaza to sit and relax and enjoy their community.”
Despite the visibility of Queens Blvd, Rahill was initially concerned about noise, making it difficult for participants to hear the instructors. However, she said that it wasn’t an issue during her first class.
She said that while car fumes may seem like an issue, they didn’t pose a problem since there are not as may cars on the road on weekends.
“It being a weekend, the traffic level was a lot lower and it wasn’t as bad as I expected,” she said.
Featured Events
16 Comments
Boy, am I tired of this crap. It was bad enough in that plaza when everybody was doing exercises on those “sculptures” that were obviously just exercise poles. The last thing we need is for these knuckleheads to bring their tough mudder garbage out into our space. No one wants to see you in your lycra, especially if you’re blocking up the whole plaza. I bet all the Sunnysiders who think this is such a great idea will be singing a different tune once they start dropping their slice from Sunnyside Pizza because they’re trying to navigate through a swarm of hipster crab walkers. Sheesh.
You brave keyboard jockey, you.
The pigeons will be joining
“mary queen” is right (and funny), nothing is ever good enough for some people. people on this site are way more negative than people you actually meet around sunnyside…this site seems like a magnet for all the crankiest crackpots.
–
i think it’s great someone wants to use this space. as for pollution, if you live in this neighborhood which is completely surrounded by the BQE, the LIE, and TWO different superfund sites, i wouldn’t worry too much about doing some exercises by queens boulevard. it’d probably do you some good.
Great use of the plaza area!
Jesus could choose to make his 2nd coming in Sunnyside and there’d still be half of you morons taking exception. Thanks YMCA, dont listen to these people.
Jesus is coming to Sunnyside now too?! Like rent isn’t increasing enough as it is. Tell that hipster to take his bandwagon back to Brooklyn!
It’s not to early for dreaming.
Moron is a very good word to describe most people who read this blog.
I saw the first class as it was happening and must question whether doing this on pavement is a good idea. Gyms use hardwood floors for very good reasons.
The Woodside-Sunnyside Runners held similar workouts during the cold winter months, under the 46th Street station that were well-attended.
Michael, any word on what type of activities were done during the class? Thanks!
Trying to get healthy by working out but instead you’re inhaling exhaust from the buses and cars. Nice!
How do people manage to walk on the sidewalk from place to place on Queens Blvd with all that vehicle exhaust around?
Is she kidding, Fewer cars on the weekend.
..Get real more people are out in their cars on the weekend.
The “real” point is that most of them have driven out of Sunnyside on the weekend.
Traffic around here subsides on the weekends.