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Chelsea Condo Board Sues CrossFit Gym Over Noisy Weight-Dropping

By James Fanelli | November 15, 2013 8:40am
 A Chelsea condo board is suing a high-end gym in its building for making too much noise during fitness classes.
Condo Board Sues Gym Over Weight-Dropping
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CHELSEA — A condo board wants a luxury CrossFit gym in its building to exercise restraint and rein in its noisy weight training.

The board at 257 West 17th Street is suing fitness center Brick New York, claiming its bodybuilders repeatedly drop their dumbbells, raising the decibel level in residents’ apartments. 

Brick, which opened in August, takes up the building’s first floor and basement. The high-end gym encourages customers to drop free weights and medicine balls on the floor in a repeated and rapid manner during training regimens, according to the lawsuit.

The condo board says that the weights start falling at 5:45 a.m. each morning, and the noise and vibrations wake residents in the building. The racket keeps going until well after 8 p.m. each night, according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Civil Supreme Court on Thursday.

“The ongoing disturbances prevent the [condo residents] from going about their daily routines in the manner a person might reasonably expect,” the lawsuit says.

Condo board members claim they have spotted Brick customers “spiking” weighted balls on the floors and dropping weights of 100 pounds or more from the height of their chest. 

The lawsuit says that the gym installed specially designed flooring to absorb the sounds and vibrations, but the muffler hasn’t worked. The vibrations are so bad that residents five stories above the gym feel them.

According to the lawsuit, the board and the gym each hired their own acoustics firm to test the noise levels. Both firms reached the same conclusion — the noise was above the legal limit.

The board says the gym claimed it would curb the weight-dropping during the early morning. Brick also allegedly detailed a plan to soundproof its rooms by December. But the lawsuit says neither has happened.

“Indeed, Brick is simply oblivious to the general havoc it has wreaked on the lives of the unit holders,” the lawsuit says.

The board also accuses Brick of organizing group sprints that pass in front of the condo’s main entrance and create a hazard.

The board’s lawsuit hopes to strong-arm Brick into dropping its weight-dropping philosophy.

A spokesman for Brick declined to comment.

The lawsuit is also suing the gym’s landlord, 257 Associates Borrower.