Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Astoria Pilates Gym Finds Temporary Home After Fire Damages Studio

 Tone NY's original space is on the second floor of a building at the corner of 37th Street and Broadway.
Tone NY's original space is on the second floor of a building at the corner of 37th Street and Broadway.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Jeanmarie Evelly

ASTORIA — Popular local gym Tone NY has found a temporary space to use while it recovers from a fire that forced its studio, and several other businesses, to close last month.

The gym, which offers a variety of Pilates classes in a studio on the second floor of a building on 37th Street and Broadway, had to close for repairs after a fire broke out in the basement of the building on Oct. 22.

With the studio temporarily unusable because of smoke and water damage, owner Jessica Hope Restrepo immediately started looking for an alternative space to keep offering classes to her regular clients, who she's been training for nearly four years. 

"It's like a little home," she said. "It was shocking and overwhelming."

Within 24 hours, a neighboring business offered to house the gym until it could return to its original space. Classes are now being held in the lower level of Nature Spa, just around the corner from the gym on Steinway Street.

"We're a real community-based studio and we have a lot of supporters," Restrepo said. "It was great to really see us all come together in a time of crisis."

The gym is offering all its normal classes in the temporary space, with the exception of its popular "Surf @ Tone," class, in which participants work out on top of a machine that simulates the movement of a surfboard.

Restrepo is hoping she'll be able to return to her original studio in a few weeks.

The gym isn't the only business that's been temporarily shuttered by the fire, which FDNY officials said broke out in the basement of 36-19 Broadway in the early morning hours of Oct. 22.

The blaze was under control about an hour later, and fire marshals have not yet determined the cause, according to the FDNY.

On Monday, the eatery Chicken Shack was still closed, as was the jewelry store Jewels of Buddha and wine bar Winegasm. A sign on the door of the bar said it's working towards reopening in the second week of November.

A man who was identified as the owner of the building, but who declined to give his name, said all of the businesses should reopen in a couple of weeks.