A community 'melting pot': Closing of Rochester YMCA met with fond memories, sadness
After 58 years of continuous basketball bounces and shoe squeaks, the Rochester YMCA gyms stand on the edge of permanent silence. That silence would have been unimaginable in 1964, when the location opened.
“We never had any trouble filling up our classes or having membership… everything was working really smoothly in those days. I always assumed it would continue that way,” said Anne Hahn, who worked at the Y in 1967.
Sadness, fond memories, and questions about the future have followed the announcement that Rochester’s YMCA fitness center closes this month. The people we interviewed for this story spoke of the YMCA as a community nexus — a place able to erase division — initially along socioeconomic lines, then racial and religious ones as the city grew. As memories spread of communal support, character-building, and competitive noon-hours, some people are returning for one last look. Others, like the 7 p.m. basketball crowd, are trying to sink as many buckets as possible before Monday.
Rooted in Rochester’s history
Rochester’s relationship with the YMCA predates the invention of basketball. As recorded in History of Olmsted County, a book written 1910 by Hon. Joseph A. Leonard, our first YMCA operated from 1867 until 1883, when population and funding troubles forced its closure. According to Olmsted History Center documents, a new spark was lit on January 29, 1906, by visiting Christian Evangelist Billy Sunday. During his last sermon in the city, he implored Rochester to take charge of its “moral destiny,” and organize a YMCA. That sermon elicited chanted demands for one from high school students, and within the year, Rochester’s YMCA was incorporated, complete with $16,000 in its coffers. A facility operated from 1909 until 1933, when it was shuttered.
Enthusiasm for a Y continued, however. Eventually, men like Hahn’s father, Dr. John Waugh, succeeded in establishing the current YMCA facility. They chose a site in the heart of the city, bordering Soldiers Field Memorial Park. Waugh died in 1962, but his picture was hung in the pool observation area as testament to his commitment, according to Hahn.
In 1978, when 21 year-old Judy Braatz started working at the YMCA, executive director Chuck Hazama exuded a similar dedication to community.
Braatz sold memberships to men (the YWCA desk was down the hall from hers), and assisted Hazama. She credits him with bringing racquetball, and a frenzy of court reservations and tournaments, to the city. Though the sport’s appeal has waned, court connections remain; just last week Braatz bumped into old racquetball pal and YMCA regular John Brandrup on a visit to her parents at Homestead of Rochester.
“In the late 70s, early 80s, it was the place to be,” said Braatz. “Of course, we had the regular basketball players that came in every day that played at noon.”
Finding community
Some of those players were probably still dribbling around the court when Lee Green arrived in Rochester in 1998.
“Me being [in] a new town, a minority, all that stuff, it was really important to have a place where I could go, having like minded individuals. That we could play a game. It became like a family at the Y. You wanted to go as much as possible, to get that camaraderie, to get that sweat, to get your game going,” he said.
The games were played to 15, won by two, and winners kept the court.
“Sometimes we have 50-60 guys in the gym, waiting to play two courts, so the idea is you want to get a good five, so you can stay on,” remembers Green.
The aging Y facility faced steep competition from newer fitness centers in town.
A game was almost always going, back then. But in the early 2010s, the Rochester Athletic Club’s standard court sizes (plus hot tubs, steam rooms, and saunas) started syphoning players.
“A lot of the guys I was playing with started migrating over there. [It] got to the point where we didn't even have enough guys to play at the Y. So, you know, obviously, I went ahead and made that transition as well,” said Green.
Now he plays the industry standard of 21 at the RAC, “but it's still not the same. You know, our roots are at the Y,” he said.
Around the time Green and his friends were transitioning away from the Y, Lanse Kyle was finding a family in spinning classes.
Kyle arrived at the YMCA on a weight loss journey. Diabetes had led to kidney disease, which led to financial struggles. Kyle wanted a kidney transplant, but was told his weight made the surgery too risky. He applied for the scholarship program at the Y — a simple process, he remembers, and one in which he was given free passes while he waited for the outcome. He was accepted — both as a member, and as a person.
“The Y was this big hodgepodge, melting pot. People were immediately welcoming. I opened up my story of my situation, and people were just super caring,” said Kyle. “They totally became my family. I met people that visited me in the hospital.”
With motivation and encouragement from the supportive community around him, Kyle lost the weight. He also found a passion for cycling, and teaching spin classes, along the way. He wound up on the American Diabetes Association cycling team (as chronicled in 2013 by Jessica of The Journey blog). He got a kidney transplant.
While recovering from his transplant, Kyle’s workout regimen slowed, and he gained some weight back. He said that when he returned to the Y after his transplant to teach, he felt like an imposter — someone too big to teach spinning. He decided to take a hiatus.
Now re-determined to lose weight in the midst of a pandemic, Kyle finds himself unmoored from the community he’d been part of. He takes immunosuppressants, which makes him wary of public spaces full of heavy breathing, so finding a new gym is off the table. He said this new leg of his journey is solitary and old-school: diet and treadmill.
“In hindsight, [leaving the Y] was a bad choice. I should have just stayed where I was supported, and figured this out,” said Kyle.
The familial support Kyle experienced was common to Y users.
“It really saved my emotional health. It was a place for me and my kids when I didn't have anywhere else to go,” said Jorrie Johnson. She and her daughter still use the Y, as they have since moving to the city in the early 2000s. Johnson was a Y board member until its dissolution in 2017, and spent another year on the community board.
‘Shocked but not surprised’
Though the YMCA’s Early Childhood Learning Center will continue operations in the city, the convenience of one location providing exercise, classes, swimming, summer camps, and community programming will be missed by many in the community. Working families and low-income youth are poised to feel the impact most sharply.
Jenni Fisher Boettcher has been a Y member for 20 years.
“It's sad. I'm shocked but not surprised because enrollment has been down, especially with a pandemic,” said Boettcher. “It's unfortunate, because it's really a nice little niche for families without the expense of other clubs.”
Boettcher uses the Y six days a week, often with her four year-olds in tow. Both she and her husband work, making on-site childcare and a swimming pool important resources for the family.
For decades, the Y’s aquatics facility was a popular attraction for families.
Karen Light Edmonds, whose nonprofit Project Legacy utilized the Y for reduced passes, space for basketball tournaments, and free swim lessons, said, “The thing that makes me very sad about this closing; there's no other place for low income kids to go swim, work out, and attend classes like a Y offered.”
Abu Farah's family qualified for a low-income membership when they moved to Rochester from Kenya in 1998. Farah was 14, and the Y was his friends’ spot, even after they graduated.
One day, Farah went to the Y after quitting a job. He was playing basketball when two of his friends started fighting. Feeling responsibility to break up the fight, he separated his friends. A Y manager named Sharon was watching. She approached him later with a job offer. She had noticed his character and thought he would make a good facility manager, she said. Farah said accepting the job was the best decision he’s ever made.
“I got to know a lot more people. I got to help a lot more youth,” said Farah. “A lot of people have different things outside, different struggles and all that stuff. But when they come to the Y, everybody's the same, everybody's having fun, and trying to be a better version of themselves.”
To accommodate the needs of conservative Somali women, he helped the Y set up Zumba, yoga, and swimming classes for just the women and girls. Farah used to stay up after hours so a Sudanese group could break their fast.
“I’m sure a lot of people will read and listen more get more sad, but it's good. It's good to cherish the memories of the place,” said Farah.
“It's bad to see it go, man,” added Green. “There's so many memories that I have there. So many friends that I've made there. The Y is one of those things that you think will be around forever.”
After memories, questions will still need answering, though.
“Thank goodness the community still has options,” said PossAbilities executive director Sue Mackert. Her organization is exploring a partnership with 125 Live to revive the swimming program for disabled youth.
Kyle is considering a 125 Live membership, which, thanks to PPO insurance, is $50 a month.
Boettcher said her family will likely choose the RAC, where childcare is $8 a day.
Low income families may be left to their own devices, though, and the Y’s melting pot atmosphere is unlikely to reconstitute elsewhere.
“The seniors now have 125 Live. Mayoers have the Dan [Abraham Healthy Living Center]. And people hitting the local AMI have the RAC. Individual pure ‘workout’ people have a ton of niche gyms from RockBox to Detour to Progression. But where does the 60 percent AMI family of five or six go now?” asks Abe Sauer, a Y member since 2014.
Others wonder what will become of the building, which sits in a high-value, center-of-the-city location. One possibility has already been closed off. Ward 5 City Councilor Shaun Palmer (another Y staffer of the 1970s) said The Rochester Swim Club asked the YMCA to lease the building and run it as a public aquatics center, but the club’s request was denied, citing risk management.
“That is a community-built building, it's been built by this community with the hopes that it will serve the community for a long time… I just don't want to see it demolished,” said Johnson.
Bryan Lund is a Rochester-based journalist and writing instructor.
Photography by William Forsman
