L-eviate your stress!
A new Bushwick massage studio is giving a $20 discount to stressed-out L-train riders when it opens on St. Nicholas Avenue on June 2.
Press Bushwick will offer the one-time markdown to any straphanger of the beleaguered line who shows a MetroCard or a receipt from a taxi, car, or ride-share app through the next year, which will help commuters decompress from their arduous journey, according to the studio’s chief.
“We wanted to give L-train survivors a break,” said Rachel Beider, the owner of Press Modern Massage, which has three more locations across the borough. “The L-train has been threatening to terrorize us for a couple of years and while it’s a relief that it’s running it’s still very stressful – living in the city is already stressful.”
Beider’s company has offered relaxing massages to Kings Countians for 11 years, opening first in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, followed by a location in Dumbo in 2018, and now in Bushwick’s New York Studio Factory at the corner of Jefferson Street, a bright blue building which houses artists, photographers, and other creatives.
The Greenpoint resident lived in the area back in 2002 and has come back in recent years for the array of funky local businesses, such as the nightclub House of Yes or the Michelin star Italian joint Faro.
There’s a burgeoning wellness sector in the former industrial area too, with the nearby Tigerlily Community Acupuncture and Solid Gold Yogi — both within a block’s distance — but Beider noticed a lack of massage studios.
“There’s not a massage presence there, which I was surprised by,” she said.
The new outpost will be staffed with four licensed massage therapists who will accommodate her Bushwick-based customers that will no longer have to schlep their tensed-up bodies to her existing centers.
“We do have quite a lot of customers from Bushwick coming to our Williamsburg and Greenpoint locations,” she said.
Many of her patrons are nine-to-five workers, but also include artists, musicians, athletes, and chefs who spend all day standing on their feet.
She also has several pregnant clients who come for Press Modern Massage’s customized prenatal care sessions.
Her studio’s one-hour treatment goes for $130 and a 90-minute session costs $185. The clinics also offer sessions to help soothe period pain called Press Flow, which this paper reported on in 2017.
Beider also created massages designed to ease cramps, pain, and tension associated with premenstrual syndrome called the Moon Cycle Massage and she recently published her book “Press Here: a Beginner’s Guide to Massage Therapy,” which offers a how-to for people looking to give their friends, partners, or themselves a relaxing massage.
She plans to expand beyond the borough boundaries into the northern hinterlands of Queens in the future and she said she still enjoys making people feel good after more than a decade in business.
“It’s the most fun career I ever had. You get to be the best part of someone’s day,” she said.
Press Bushwick will be open seven days a week, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., by appointment only. For more information visit www.pressmodernmassage.com/press-bushwick.
