NYC Drytooling Gym

Floating this out into the world: I’d love to start some sort of drytooling space in NYC.

I have no experience opening up gym spaces but I guess it’d start as some co-op model. My current connection of mixed/drytool climbers in the city is a bit limited but I’d like to help grow the sport, beyond the occasional sessions at local gyms on wooden tools or plastic picks.

If you know someone with an unused basement or a garage that’s looking to rent it out, please send them my way! If someone has a private woodie and is open to variety in the type of training they do, I have metal drytooling holds to contribute. If anyone has experience with small commercial rentals and the logistics of buildouts and insurance, I’d like to hear from you.

Sounds awesome, good luck! I'm in NH so this is not relevant to me, however, I thought you should know that The Edge Halfmoon hosts dry tooling nights every weekend and is run by a very prominent member of the USA Ice Climbing team. There's at least one regular I know who travels there from the city. There's also a very good chance you already know this and know him as this is a very small community...

Oh absolutely! Tyler does a fantastic job with the drytooling nights and I've tried to make it out as often as I've could. I do wish Edgemoon is a little closer.. I've spoken with Mike, the other person that heads up from the city, and he'd be in for helping out with a local space if/when things get going.

This all will definitely take a few years to get off the ground but I thought I'd float the idea on this forum to gather up any interested parties

Not much to contribute other than enthusiasm, but if anyone can make this work you can, Conan! I'm excited to see how this project evolves and I hope you find an awesome space to build out. ❄️

Just tagging along to follow the topic. Having a similar interest, living in MA though. 

An update for anyone following along. I've since found a space and a crew is slowly growing. DM me if you're ever around town on a Tuesday night and are looking to get scratchy!

Just found this thread, hi Conan! It was great meeting you at the Valhalla comp last month. Hopefully I'll end up in NYC on a Tuesday sometime soon!

seda s wrote:

Just tagging along to follow the topic. Having a similar interest, living in MA though. 

Likewise! I'm in the Boston area and I've had the back-of-the-head idea of somehow trying to get a basement setup going (my apartment's basement is pretty low for any proper buildout plus the floors aren't the thickest...) or finding a place with a garage to build in. With the obvious challenge that that's dependent on a consistent housing location, rental limitations, etc... I know that there's the MWV Climber's Co-op that's trying to get started up, and Climb Monadnock in Keene with their dry tooling wall, but with how far of a drive Keene is I might as well just take the extra half hour and go west to Halfmoon (not to mention my parents are around there and my mom keeps asking me to stop by more...)

Whatever the setup, it seems like there's definitely some desire out there for more dedicated and accessible dry tooling spaces in New England... this is worth its own thread, versus tacking on to this existing one!

Very stoked to find this thread, sent you a PM Colin!

I'm very curious to see how this world evolves in the next few years. Greg's event at Movement Valhalla was an indication of how much interest there is - we just need to continue pushing for more visibility! I'd love for this to reach the point where big cities have dedicated facilities. A drytooling comp/clinic/icefest in a Boston or NYC gym could be a fantastic entry point and would guarantee to attract so many spectators. Just seeing the turnout in Longmont (Boulder/Denver) or Edmonton for the UIAA WC comps gives you an idea of the audience size when an event is more accessible and held in a denser metropolitan area.