Be careful when you go to NYSC. I am a former member of NYSC who encountered verbal harassment and racial discrimination at NYSC. Please read below for details of the incident.
On Friday, July 15th, a few days after I had joined NYSC, I went to work out at the West 73rd Street NYSC gym. At 9pm, I was cutting it a little close (closing time was 10pm) but I was hoping to finish my workout within one hour. At 10pm, I was finishing up my last free weight exercises when the trainer, Vincent Lake, told me that the gym had closed. I told him I had two sets left and continued to work out as he walked away. He returned and stared at me until I finally left. Understanding that I had worked out when he had explicitly told me to leave, I returned the free weights to the appropriate area and then headed into the shower to rinse off quickly before leaving. While I was showering, I heard Vincent asking gruffly, “Who’s in the shower?” Startled, I did not respond; the voice then asked again, much closer to me this time. I told Vincent that I was quickly showering and would be out soon. Standing in the small vestibule almost directly in front of my shower, he proceeded to berate me for staying in the gym past closing time. At this point, I was extremely agitated and told the trainer that I would not leave the shower until he left the bathroom. He remained in the vestibule for two minutes before finally leaving. Once he left, I exited the shower, quickly put on my clothes and left the bathroom. Upon approaching the exit, Vincent taunted me, telling me his full name and asking me to approach management with my complaint. At this point, I turned around and told him that he did not really care about his job if he reacted in this fashion. His only response was, “I don’t care.”
Extremely upset, I called management of the West 73rd Street location the next day to inform them of my complaint. I was told by an individual named Mary that the relevant manager was not in but would contact me on Monday, July 18th. On Monday morning, I was contacted by Sean Austin of the West 73rd Street location. I told Sean my complaint and told him that I had to cancel my gym membership given the incident that occurred. I also asked that some action be taken against Vincent given the way he had treated me. Sean told me that rather than quitting NYSC, he would talk to his manager and see if it would be possible to get me a passport membership (at that time, I only had a membership to attend the West 73rd Street gym) for the same price as what I was paying for the core membership. He promised to get back to me with a resolution by 3pm that same day. However, neither at 3pm nor the next day did I receive a call from Sean. Upset by this dismissive attitude, I called the West 73rd location and demanded that I get an update from Sean. Finally, on Wednesday, July 20th, Sean returned my call. He apologized for returning my call late, indicating that he had lost his phone and hadn’t received my messages until then. He then told me that no action would be taken against Vincent and that he could not provide me with the passport membership. Without further explanation, he proceeded to terminate membership and quickly ended the call.
Enraged by this action, I decided to launch my own protest. I created fliers that detailed the incident and my treatment by the management team. At 6pm on that same Wednesday, I went to the West 73rd Street location and began distributing the fliers to passersby. As is their right, the management of the West 73rd Street location called the police, who arrived and indicated that while I was within my rights to protest, I had to stand at a distance so as not to block ingress and egress. I followed these requests and stayed at some distance from the entrance passing out fliers. At this point, Sean Austin came out and indicated to me that this was not an appropriate action. He told me that he had not believed Vincent before but given what I was doing, he was now inclined to disbelieve me. I told him that I would not be exerting as much energy as I was in the heat of summer passing out fliers if I did not strongly believe that an injustice had occurred. Given that the police had taken no action, management decided to follow another tack. An NYSC employee approached me and handed me one of my own fliers (which I still possess) that had a stick figure drawing with a title of “Crazy member” above it. Shortly thereafter, she returned with fliers of her own that she passed out to members telling them not to believe the “crazy member” outside. In the meantime, Sean stood next to me as I flyered and told members that all the information that I was telling them was false. As bad as this was, this intimidation was not enough. During a pause where no members were passing, Sean proceeded to ask me if “my culture, my background led me to believe that I was so sophisticated.” Being a member of a minority culture, I could not believe that he was making such a racist statement to me so baldly. I proceeded to tell him that I had a tape recorder on me. In response, he spat out, “Oh, you’re one of those.” He then walked away and left me alone for the remainder of the time that I was outside handing out fliers.
At this point, I knew I could not reach any resolution with the management of Town Sports International, especially after Sean’s racist remarks. I decided to call Town Sports International to seek redress. I was directed to Sean Foley, the regional manager, on whose voicemail I left a message on Thursday, July 21st. I have yet to receive a call back. I’ve also sent a letter to Robert Giardina, the CEO of Town International. Same story, no response.
My opinion is that NYSC is not going to take any action on its own to correct this issue. The only thing that can be done is for the public to let NYSC know that this behavior is not tolerable and that they will lose members if they continue to act this way. If you are outraged by this incident, contact NYSC and express your anger that this incident has occurred. Spread this posting around so more people are aware of NYSC’s behavior. More than anything else, if you are a member, think about changing gyms and if you are not a member, do not even consider NYSC for your next gym. Unless YOU do something, NYSC will keep on mistreating people and making money off it.
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