One of the very few remaining privately-owned gyms in the city celebrates more than two decades of success

by Jessica Jones-Gorman • Photos By amessé photography

It’s 6 p.m. on a finally spring-like Tuesday, and at the Bay Ridge location of his Brooklyn gym, Chris Ganim is accepting a delivery of AstroTurf.

“In our Bay Ridge club, we’re in the process of building an outdoor training area,” the multi-tasking gym-preneur said, signing for palettes of the artificial grass while juggling his buzzing cell phone. “We’ve reserved 2,000 square feet of space at the exterior of the building where our clients can take classes and do sprints, sleds and tire flips.”

It’s all part of the latest High Intensity Training health craze, in which fitness freaks cross-train for cardio instead of running in place on a treadmill or spinning on a stationary bike. But for Ganim and his brother Mike, it’s nothing new.

“Ou r g yms a r e v e r y unique, not generic,” Gamin said, detailing Harbor Fitness, the company that he and his brother built from the ground up in an old movie theater on Fourth Avenue. “Our equipment is top-notch, we have the best staff in the industry, and we are one of the only privately owned fitness facilities left in Brooklyn; every other gym is publicly traded or part of a franchise, so that leaves us with an opportunity to offer unique service to our members.”

Founded in 1992 when the brothers were presented with an opportunity to make some thing happen at family-owned building which formerly housed the old Harbor Movie Theater, the gym started small, but made big use of its offbeat interior.

“We had very little equipment in that first club; every six months or so we would reinvest our earnings and buy more machines, more innovation, more flooring,” Ganim said. “We restored all of the old 40-foot ceilings, made use of all of the old movie theater balconies. It probably took us seven years to build the club we really wanted out of completely nothing. But little by little, we put everything we had into it and made it happen.”

All of the hard work and innovative ideas paid off. After several years at their flagship location, they opened a second in Park Slope, a third in Mill Basin, then a fourth in Marine Park (which also happened to be an old restored theater). The key to their success? Their gym was different.

“Design was always important to us,” Ganim explained. “We considered everything: lighting, music, colors, flooring, and we wanted the experience in each club to be different because each neighborhood has a different type of clientele. Park Slope is a great area with a fitness minded crowd, but it’s not the same type of crowd that we have in our Bay Ridge club. So the space, the classes, everything needed to be tailored.”

All of the Ganim brothers’ clubs are 24 hours, each offering over 70 different group fitness classes. The gym also offers a free app to all members where clients can access workout tips and nutritional advice and recipes, as well as reserve space in a class. And Harbor Fitness’s staff, which numbers somewhere around 300, is the foundation of the brand.

“Service is super important to us,” Ganim said. “If we don’t service our members the right way, someone else will. The whole industry has changed over the past 20 years – there is a higher awareness now, the standards are higher, and members know exactly what they want from their gym.”

Group Fitness Director Jodi Heywood and Lisa Lekacos, general manager of one of the Harbor Fitness locations for the past 20 years, help organize charity functions to benefit autism awareness and a variety of other causes.

“We’ve hosted a Zumba block party, a 5K run…even a strength contest to raise money for different community organizations,” Ganim concluded. “We’ve been here for a long time, so we like to do as much as we can to give back to all of the areas where we operate.”

Harbor Fitness
9215 4th Ave., Bay Ridge / 718.238.9400
191 15th St., Park Slope / 718.965.6200
6161 Strickland Ave., Mill Basin / 718.763.9200
2825 Nostrand Ave., Marine Park / 718.676.9332
harborfitness.com