Olympia Gym, Ridgewood, New York (Queens)

In the heart of Queens, NY, there was a gym that stood the test of time for nearly sixty years. That gym was named the Olympia Health Club. Throughout the gym’s long history, many legends to the iron game trained there: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Colombo, and Dennis Tinerino –just to name a few.  To fully understand the legacy of the Olympia Health Club, one must first look into how the gym came into existence.

The Olympia Health Club was opened by legendary bodybuilding contest promoters Al Fives and Andy Bostino in 1958, at a time when bodybuilding gyms were not common. Andy and Al first set up shop in a large storefront on Fresh Pond Road in the Ridgewood section of Queens.  At the time of the gym’s opening, coeducational gyms were nonexistent. Realizing this inadequacy, Andy and Al set up a separate gym for women on the upper floor of the club. Since weight training at the time was thought to be an activity for men only, this inclusion of women was a groundbreaking decision and one of the club’s many admirable attributes.

Denis Tinerino (Top) and a local lifter doing grip training.

Due to the great size of the facility and Fives and Bostino’s involvement in promoting bodybuilding contests, The Olympia Health Club quickly drew weightlifters and bodybuilders from all over the five boroughs of New York City. Fives and Bostino became well known in the fledgling New York bodybuilding scene, and many professionals sought them out for all matters pertaining to training and nutrition.

Magazine article featuring one of the many contests promoted by Al Fives and Andy Bostino.

(L-R: Andy Bostino, Some Austrian bodybuilder and Al Fives)

As the Olympia Health Club grew in both reputation and prominence, bodybuilders from all over the world made it a point to stop in for a training session whenever they were in town. One of the bodybuilders IFBB president Joe Weider brought over from Austria was named Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger and his best friend (and fellow IFBB competitor) Franco Columbo made great use of the vast amount of equipment that the Olympia Health Club had to offer. One of these great pieces of equipment was a Jubinville preacher curl machine that was used prominently in the gym all the way up until 2012.  That very same Jubinville preacher curl machine was even immortalized by legendary photographer Brian Moss in an early 2000’s Animalpak advertisement during one of his many photo sessions at the Olympia Health Club.

As time progressed, Al Fives and Andy Bostino continued promoting bodybuilding contests, but found increasing disagreement with the use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes in the bodybuilding universe. So in 1979, Bostino and Fives formed The National Gym Association (NGA).  The focus of the NGA was to promote drug free bodybuilding as well as educate gym owners, bodybuilders, and personal trainers on all matters of physical fitness. In the 1980s, Andy Bostino moved away from the day-to-day operations of the Olympia Health Club in order to devote more time to the NGA while Al Fives continued to operate the gym. Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, the Olympia Health Club remained a staple in the Ridgewood community.

Iconic photo by Brian Moss featuring Frank McGrath using the same preacher curl machine that Arnold & Franco used in the above photos, over 30 years later.

In 2001, its longtime manager, Gerard Quiros, purchased The Olympia Health Club. The gym continued to operate under Quiros’ ownership and maintained its well-gained reputation as a serious, no nonsense facility. Quiros continued to run the gym as a more serious facility at a time when other fitness centers started to become more mainstream by catering less to bodybuilders and powerlifters and more towards everyday people. Under Gerard Quiros’ ownership, the Olympia Health Club underwent a massive renovation that included upgraded equipment and amenities.  As the first decade of the new millennium came to end, The Olympia Health Club was about to experience yet another change in ownership.

Gerard Quiros and members of Olympia Gym.

In 2011, The Olympia Health Club was purchased by the United Presbyterian Church, which continued to run the gym as an outreach program. It was the Church’s hope that the gym would help increase congregation numbers. The head of the church, Reverend Henry Fury wanted the gym to remain a comfortable place for the community, a place where a member could come and talk about a problem or receive guidance. CBS news even ran a feature on the church’s ownership of the gym in 2014. At the time of the feature, the church admitted that the gym was barely breaking even and the money from the gym was used to fund the Church’s other outreach programs. Still, the church attempted to keep the Olympia Health Club an affordable and welcoming place for the community.

Recent photo of Olympia Gym, shortly before closing.

Sadly, the Olympia Health Club shut its doors permanently in November of 2015. And, with the closing of the Olympia Health Club, another historic neighborhood gym has gone quietly into the night.

Storefront shot of Olympia Gym.

Gym History: The Atlas Health Club

Some gyms have more than good equipment and atmosphere, some gyms have history. Total Fitness Health Club on Kennedy Blvd in North Bergen is one of those places. However, few are aware that the gym began its existence as the Atlas Health Club in Jersey City.

Jersey City has always been a tough city; it is a place where you had to be strong as well as street smart in order to survive. In the 1950’s, Jersey City was a working class neighborhood. Many of the residents supported themselves and their families by working in the various factories located downtown (including Colgate). These jobs were very physical, so it was rare that a hardworking man would spend what little leisure time they had performing what was in a sense, more manual labor. And yet, people were beginning to realize the importance of having a strong, healthy body.  In 1958, a new type of gymnasium opened up in the heights section of Jersey City on the corner of Charles Street and Central Avenue.  The gym provided residents with a venue to participate in a relatively new hobby: bodybuilding. The name of the gym was The Atlas Health Club and it was started in 1958 by Don Andretta and Denie Walters (a teenager at the time).  The Atlas Health Club was one of the first true bodybuilding gyms in the USA; early on it attracted many local competitive bodybuilders. The Atlas quickly became known as the place to train. One early Atlas member was future Mr. New Jersey Mike Romagnola.

The Atlas Health Club (and bodybuilders in general) had a strong sense of community as well as camaraderie not often found in today’s gyms.  John Kemper, Serge Nubret and Harold Poole (see images below) all hit the iron at the Atlas. 

According to Mike Romagnola, there were quite a few interesting occurrences that took place at The Atlas Health Club. One infamous incident involved a lifter performing barbell squats. Apparently, when the lifter unracked the weight, the floor collapsed and sent the lifter and the barbell down into the store below, leaving a hole in the floor that was promptly covered up by carpeting. The hole in the floor remained until the gym relocated directly across the street above the post office.  In the Atlas’ new location at 392 Central Ave, a sauna was added and the gym was split over 2 floors, which enabled Don Andretta to purchase more equipment since he now had more space.

Mike Romagnola performing lat pulldowns at the 2nd location of The Atlas Health Club

In 1966, Denie Walters left The Atlas to open up his own gym in Downtown Jersey City. Even though Denie was no longer was involved in the Atlas’ daily operations, Denie still used the gym to photograph several bodybuilders including Mike Romagnola and Serge Nubret, for magazines such as Muscle Training Illustrated.

Sometime in the early 70’s, Don Andretta relocated The Atlas a second time to 623 Kennedy Boulevard in North Bergen, New Jersey where it was renamed Total Fitness Health Club. Amazingly, Don continued running the gym until 1998 when his son Don Jr. took over and still operates it to this day.

Stepping into Total Fitness Health club in the present day, you will notice that the facility is refreshingly old school, complete with equipment from legendary manufacturers such as TK star, York, Atlantis, Nautilus, Cybex and Flex. Total Fitness Health Club has some longtime members that remember the facility in its former incarnation as The Atlas on Central Ave. The fact that Total Fitness has managed to retain some members for such a long time is a testament to the gym’s exceptional customer service.

In today’s ever changing fitness landscape, it's refreshing to see a small, old school facility Like Total Fitness remain true to its roots as a serious, bare bones neighborhood gym.

One final note, if you count its time as The Atlas, Total Fitness Health Club is 57 years old, making it one of the oldest gyms in the country.

Welcome.

                As you open the door to the gym, the smell of sweat is the first thing that you notice. Followed by guttural moans which are then followed by the sound of weights hitting the floor. The sound of rock music vibrates throughout the walls and your heart begins to pound.

                You are now at the top of the staircase and you are standing in a small waiting area. In front of you is the main entrance to the gym; in the distance you can clearly see the equipment.

                Battle worn benches, power racks, Hammer Strength equipment and various other machines are in use. Towards the back of the gym, you notice a small section of treadmills and bikes.  No one is using them.

                Towards the dumbbell rack, you see an almost impossibly large human being performing flat dumbbell presses with the 150 pound dumbbells. You then notice that the dumbbells go all the way up to 200 pounds. They are tattered and worn from years of use. It is then that you realize that this is why you took two buses to get here. You have found a GYM.

                If you have ever trained in a hardcore gym (especially as a teenager) this was most likely your experience. I know because that was MY experience. I could tell you about myself and my own training and experiences in the iron game, but that's not the main point of this blog. This blog is going to be about THE GYMS.

                So why am I starting a blog about hardcore gyms? There are many answers but mostly the reason is that hardcore gyms are dying. My goal is to raise awareness of the surviving hardcore gyms and to look back and celebrate the ones that are gone. Some of these long gone gyms are legendary; others live on in brief mentions in old periodicals and tales told by former members.

                It is my hope and intention to feature a different gym with each blog and whatever information I can gather, including interviews from the owners, equipment reviews and pictures. It is my intention to have the most complete and comprehensive blog on hardcore gyms on the internet.

                At the very least, in 20 years or so, I will have a record of a time when true, well equipped bodybuilding gyms still existed before they were all replaced with empty rooms that now include tires and sledgehammers, on one side of the spectrum and Planet Fitness franchises on the other.