(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Because you can’t have more desserts on St. Marks Place without having somewhere to work them off, a new gym is opening in the onetime home of Mondo Kim’s.
Nimble Fitness, which already has a Greenwich Village spot on East 12th Street, is expanding into 6 St. Marks, above the recently opened East Village location of Barcade.
It might be tempting to consider this yet another case of boot camps replacing bohemianism, but this isn’t the first time 6 St. Marks has been dedicated to, er, physical therapy. The building housed a Turkish bath from 1906 until the late 1970s, when it transitioned into being a gay bathhouse (as this He-Man-inspired ad from 1978 attests). Shortly before closing in the midst of the AIDS crisis in 1985, the New St. Marks Baths reportedly housed “a restaurant, a tiled swimming pool and hot tub, a steam room and sauna, and a room known as ‘the dormitory,’ where [owner Bruce] Mr. Mailman said he recently increased the lighting to discourage group sex.”
After a brief run as a karaoke joint, the lights will once again be turned up. Nimble is expected to open in January, according to a Facebook post tagged #changeisgood. The gym specializes in injury rehab and personal training using the Muscle Activation Technique, and offers classes in TRX suspension and yoga.