‘The Best-Kept Secret in Hollywood’
Hidden well off the beaten path, between the garish glitz and numbing noise of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards, on the faceless corner of Selma and Schrader, there’s an unusual neighborhood social club. The refurbished Hollywood YMCA, which overlooks an empty lot and a shuttered-up joint called Grandma’s Kitchen, is an oasis amid the surrounding riffraff.
Loyal members regard this Y as a true focal point for the community, sort of a hub for the family life of Hollywood, which sounds like an oxymoron only to outsiders and tourists. “The broken people get the most attention,” says actor James Le Gros, who’s been involved in Y activities since he was a kid. “But it’s at places like the Y where you get to see the real spine of the community.”
Part workout facility, wellness center and family meeting place, the Y also houses a day-care center, kindergym, an international hostel and transitional lodgings for homeless single women and moms with kids. This venerable institution has stood on its present site since 1921 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Gangster Bugsy Siegel once played back-room card games at the Y, while director Ed Wood’s sidekick and original TV psychic Criswell held seances upstairs.
Like some other Hollywood denizens, this grand old dame recently got some serious nips and tucks along with a $13-million dollar face-lift. The renovation, combined with the fitness craze and the hum of renewal in central Hollywood, have transformed the club into a lively social center. Today, the spiffed-up place welcomes movie celebrities like Tim Allen, Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves, along with a steady pageant of kids, pregnant moms, senior citizens and an exotic dancer or two thrown in for good measure.
“Well, Raymond Chandler’s Hollywood stories always had a little sleaze,” 20-year member and veteran TV writer Henry Olek slyly suggests. While Olek calls the place his “home away from home,” Le Gros simply calls it “the best-kept secret in Hollywood.”
Le Gros (“Living in Oblivion” and “Drugstore Cowboy”), who hits the computerized treadmills and stationary bikes, enthuses, “When you join the Y, you become part of a community. At other gyms, you work out with people like yourself. You can get insulated in this industry, but here you meet a cross-section of people you’d never normally come in contact with.”
Steve Anderson, a writer and director (“South Central”) watches the daily parade of street people from the sanctuary of his office across the street from the Y. “Believe me, the Y is a shining gem in Hollywood’s trash heap. Anyone talking about Hollywood’s rebirth hasn’t had to wade through the night crawlers after dark.”
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Family membership has tripled since the renovation was completed a little more than a year ago, and women like actress Karyn Parsons, who co-starred in TV’s “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” are also discovering the Y and its upgraded women’s facilities. Gone are the days when women members had to play second-fiddle to the men’s fitness club and put up with a “dank and awful” locker room, as screenwriter Sally Nemeth remembers it. The Y’s activities now include a very competitive women’s basketball league.
The make-over probably saved the Y from the wrecking ball. Over the years, the club had operated under a two-tiered system: the exclusive men’s Fitness Club and the general membership. But as the edifice fell into disrepair in the 1980s, even the once well-appointed men’s club had become a “low-rent old boys club,” according to Le Gros. Matters became even more urgent when the 1994 Northridge quake caused serious internal damage and cracks in the Mediterranean-style facade.
A capital campaign to raise money for the renovation was spearheaded by life-long member Allen, star of TV’s “Home Improvement.” A former Y member in Detroit and in Denver, where both his granddad and dad were board members, Allen and his wife, Laura Deibel, got involved, helping to raise more than $500,000 together.
The remodeling was designed by Luckman Partnership Inc. and included expansion of the exercise areas and the locker rooms. The Y officially reopened in October 1995 with a more egalitarian outlook. In were equal services for men and women; out was the old Fitness Club, to the chagrin of some.
“There was a much more congenial group in the old days,” says dance teacher David Nillo, 79. “It was nice to have our own lounge. It really was a club then.”
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In any case, membership director Michael Garvin believes the changes have brought the Y into the 1990s. He notes that all 2,000 members pay the same rates--the basic adult membership is $32 monthly. “And we now have such a broad membership that everyone fits in,” he says. “Denzel comes to play ball with the guys and he blends in. No one gets treated any differently.”
On the social services side, the Y offers a transitional housing program called A Brighter Future for at-risk women. There are 15 individual dorm-style rooms for single women, and eight individual one-bedroom apartments for single mothers with kids. The maximum length of stay is 18 months, and the program offers counseling to prepare the women for an independent life.
But the major hub of the Y remains its recreational facilities. While some octogenarians complain about the changes, others like former RKO cameraman Bob Touyarot, who worked with Kirk Douglas on “The Big Sky,” simply come to be part of the crowd.
Le Gros, who says it’s great that kids get to mix with seniors, jokes, “The old guys have been grousing since Day One.” Olek, who owns the nearby Birds restaurant, agrees, but adds: “It’s like a family here. People get personally involved.”
Indeed, the Y is a daily staple in many members’ lives. RKO Pictures executive Art Horan says tongue in cheek, “I’ve probably done my career a disservice by coming to the Y instead of doing power lunches.”
