Who needs to scale the New York Times building when you can take on the Brooklyn Bridge?
Avid climbers who get their rocks off on, well, rocks, will find John A. Roebling’s marvel (or a close facsimile) and more when Brooklyn Boulders rock−climbing gym opens this summer in Gowanus.
The new, somewhat off−the−wall business venture (no pun intended) is currently being built inside the old Daily News garage on Third Avenue at Degraw Street and is expected to be partially opened by the second week of July. Rock climb enthusiasts will be able to experience everything Brooklyn Boulders has to offer −− including a kids’ room for the perfect birthday party −− at the end of August.
Lance Pinn, one of the three men bringing Brooklyn Boulders to life, said that they searched all over downtown Brooklyn for an adequate spot, but immediately fell in love with the Daily News garage, which has high peaks.
“You really can’t tell from the outside,” Pinn explained. “It looks like a 20 foot building, but there’s an inset inside that goes up to 30 feet, five inches.”
“We couldn’t tell you how lucky we were to find this,” he said. “It’s perfect for us.”
Pinn, the company’s business manager, said that Brooklyn Boulders is leasing 18,000 square feet of the 40,000−square−foot building, which will take up the entire Third Avenue side.
The property was purchased by a real estate developer over a year ago. When interviewed by www.brownstowner.com (who also broke the story on Brooklyn Boulders), the developer said that he wanted to lease the property to a pharmacy or supermarket chain.
Back when Brooklyn Boulders was simply a business plan, Pinn and his partners knew that one of the rock climbing walls was going to look like the Brooklyn Bridge −− an avid climber’s dream.
“We love the Brooklyn Bridge,” Pinn said. “It’s an iconic structure that you can’t climb. When we were designing our standout feature, we didn’t have to look very hard.”
While Pinn said he always knew that Brooklyn Boulders was going to be welcomed by climbers throughout the city looking for a world−class, inexpensive alternative to similar gyms, he never realized how many homegrown rock heads he would find.
“The support from the community has been outrageous,” he said. “Since we started work, we’ve had about 70 people come to us right from the neighborhood asking if they can help out. A million marketing surveys wouldn’t have predicted that there would be so many climbing enthusiasts right here.”
Those scrambling to find out more about Brooklyn Boulders can go to their website at www.brooklynboulders.com.
