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Comments (0) Best Gym - 2011

YMCA Village of Allapattah Family Branch

YMCA Village of Allapattah Family Branch
Readers' Choice: South Florida Boxing Gym
What Miami needs more of is a YMCA culture. We're not talking about men wearing construction-worker or police-officer or Indian-chief costumes while making letters with their arms. We're talking true YMCA culture, like those in cities such as Cleveland or Baltimore: blue-collar dudes and wealthy-commissioner types working out in the same gym and then sweating together in the steam room, grumbling about the local quarterbacks' professional inadequacies while thumbing through soggy sports sections. (Editor's note: This was written by a male who has no idea what happens in female steam rooms because he's pretty sure the Cinemax movie he watched on the subject was not accurate.) Yep, in the Rust Belt, the YMCA is where the plebeians mix easily with the fat cats. But in Miami, the rich people work out at a posh health club that looks like a Moroccan whorehouse (let's call it Pavid Carton), and the poor people get ripped in one-room gyms featuring crude paintings of barbells on the walls. That's why we're pretty happy about the YMCA Village of Allapattah Family Branch — how gloriously uncool is that name? — opening its doors. There's no steam room to hobnob with a nude and sweaty city mayor, but it is otherwise truly a gym for the people: Membership is $34 for a single adult, $44 for a couple, and $50 for two adults and as many kids as you have. Yep, kids: They're like people but smaller, and they get really emotionally invested in ice-cream cones. Bet you haven't seen any such creatures at Pavid Carton, huh, fancy-pants?

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