THE LAST LUCILLE ROBERTS

Iconic NYC gym chain is down to one location

- ALEX VADUKUL

In a New York thoroughfare in the busy Forest Hills neighbourhood of Queens sits a women-only gym with faded hot pink signage. It is the last surviving location of Lucille Roberts, a chain of women's health clubs that once thrived in New York, leading a trend that fused fitness with feminism. Now that it has dwindled down to just one location, its most loyal members have ended up here.

Women in their 50s and 60s who have worked out for decades at Lucille Roberts now take classes including Zumba and “Brazilian Butt and Gutt” in a fluorescent-lit studio. They have little interest in going anywhere else. Signs on the walls remind members not to leave their purses and handbags unattended when they're using the machines. A magenta poster announces: “Strong Women Work Out Here.”

On a recent afternoon at this gym on Austin Street, members explained why they have stuck with Lucille Roberts long after it was a leader in its field, with more than 50 locations in the New York area.

Marguerite Toussaint pumped some iron after finishing her morning shift as a hotel pastry cook at the Park Hyatt in Manhattan. She has been a Lucille Roberts member since the mid-1990s, when she signed up at a location in Brooklyn, not long after she moved from Haiti to New York. She wakes up each workday before dawn and trains here on her way home.

"All of us hope this gym never closes," Toussaint said. "It's not like other gyms. It's a community for women. We care about each other here. If you don't see somebody, you call and find out. 'Hey, why didn't I see you today?, I don't see that at Planet Fitness."