The tagline for Englewood’s chic new fitness center, The Gym, is simply experience it. Such a sterile, nondescript slogan manages, in two words, to exemplify the frustrating nuances of The Gym’s interior. Hulking machines line the walls like control panels on the Millennium Falcon, offering little to no explanation as to how to use them. To the casual health nut like me, this is off-putting to say the least. Everyone seems so worked up trying to figure out their respective machines that there simply is no time for community amongst the various joggers and weight lifters.
For an enjoyable time, I found myself having to go somewhere else.
Enter Tenafly’s Oxygen, a modest establishment located on Washington Avenue that offers less futuristic contraptions and more friendly faces. Often times the owners are seen chasing their rambunctious beagle around as she tries to steal one of the receptionists’ dinners. Comic relief like that is a rare and precious commodity when you’re pushing your body to its absolute limits and need distractions.
With big business wiping out other facets of Bergen County’s self-contained economy and bringing about the death of mom-and-pop stores aplenty, we often forget that our local gyms are also in danger of becoming extinct.
Forget the flash and glitter that a place like The Gym can offer, go enroll in your local exercise facility and help keep Bergen County’s community alive and thriving.
