Giving City Gym An Accessible Workout

I use to work out at a City Gym on the east side. I was training for the Paralympic World games. Even though I was working out with a trainer, there were times when I had to work out on my own. I tried to go in the gym with my guide dog whose name was Kira. I was told that I could not take the dog in the workout rooms with me and that she would have to be tied to the bench outside the door .

A few years ago, I started to use the City Gym on the west side. This gym did not mind the dog in the gym. And even though that City Gym was accessible for wheelchair users, it was not for blind and visually impaired people. Their equipment was not marked. So I could not use the equipment independently.

After asking if I could mark the equipment. I was told to contact the Parks Accessibility Coordinator for the NYC Parks Dept. I got the ok from him and begin marking the equipment for use. But what I was able to do was a temporary fix for a long term issue. They did not want to have permanent glue left on the equipment so I had to use Dymo tape. But because of the surface on the equipment it would not stick for long. I could only mark one piece of equipment of each set which would cause another problem if someone else was using that particular equipment that day. So to say the least our Parks department has a way to go with making our city gyms accessible.

I was able to get them to put up the Braille signage in the correct place, which was a plus.