Taking Asphalt Green for a Spin

A demonstration spinning class in a room equipped with 24 bikes. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

There were no ribbons to cut, no speeches to endure, no brouhaha whatsoever.
Still, the long-awaited, much-delayed opening of Battery Park City’s Asphalt Green on June 15 was grand all the same.

No sooner had the doors opened, with staff standing ready, than members, members-to-be and the just plain curious were filing in at 212 North End Ave. to swim laps, shoot hoops, elevate pulse rates on brand new treadmills and otherwise try out the center’s $55-million facilities. For the next 12 days, people
could explore the place and take demonstration classes for free.

“I’m bowled over,” said Wendy Most, who was pausing between sets on one of the center’s weight machines. She said that she and her husband, Nathan Weber, will be abandoning the small nearby gym they had been using for many years.

“I feel like they have the best machines,” she said of Asphalt Green. “They know what they’re doing and they have such great experience with the uptown place. I think we’re going to love it.”

The 52,000-square-foot center, at 212 North End Ave., is opening a year-and-a-half later than planned, delayed first by an impasse in contract negotiations between Asphalt Green and the Battery Park City Authority and then by
massive damage from Hurricane Sandy.

All that seemed well in the past on this day. Basking in the swirl of activity around her, Asphalt Green’s executive director Carol Tweedy stood in the lobby with the center’s director, Bryan Beary, and smiled.

“This response shows that the community is so receptive to us,” Tweedy said.

“It’s a win for us and win for Lower Manhattan.”