By Gary Martin
Gary B. Martin is an illustrator and animator who has lived on the Upper West Side for more than 30 years. His illustrations appear in the Rag on Sundays, chronicling life in the neighborhood, New York City, and the Universe. See them all here. For a broader range of Gary’s work, including animations and other motion graphics, please visit www.martoons.com
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The Upper West Side is positively packed with pristine Pilates palaces promising powerful posterior perfection and they’re proliferating at a positively preposterous pace. Just sayin’.
Try saying that with a mouthful of Saltines.
Polly’s preferred picnic
Noooo. Don’t do it!!
You can even get crucified at Pontius Pilates.
dang! you beat me to it.
No snow on the street looks like a fever dream to me.
Cheers from sunny Sarasota. Stay safe , friends ……
P LATTES sounds like a keeper to me. HAHAHA-Ty as always Gary!!!
I thought it became Starbucks and Urgent Care. Maybe that’s the West Side. 😏
Meant East Side 🙄
The price of progress!
This too shall pass — cold plunge spas coming soon on a block near you.
remember back rub salons?
Oh yes, simpler times.
Yes and next it will be all bars if/when we survive this weekend!!
Good one, Gary!
The cartoon is not really accurate. At least half of all the new Pilates studios are either on the 2nd or 3rd floors of commercial buildings (even when the ground floor space is empty), or are being run out of people’s apartments in residential buildings. The actual number taking up empty storefronts is minimal. So even with all the new Pilates studios opening, it is not really having an impact on “empty storefront syndrome.” as this cartoon would suggest.
It is true that, as a service “industry,” Pilates is one of the few things that cannot be offered on the Internet, which has been the primary driver of empty storefront syndrome, since “bricks and mortar” stores are increasingly unnecessary when one can get “things” as cheaply or more so, and almost as quickly, by buying them online.
This is why it is service-oriented places – coffee shops, nail salons/spas, restaurants, banks, etc. – that are having an impact (however small) on empty storefront syndrome. (I still haven’t figured out why CBD stores are proliferating, since that, too, can be bought online.)
Still, I’m glad to see the entrepreneurship being shown by this burgeoning industry.
Wow! Have you ever heard the word “killjoy?”
Ugh!
Soon to be in Eastport!
I tried that. Once!
hi Floria!
Never enough Pilates Studios…
We need some regular gyms, especially on the Upper UWS.
I suppose these are all geriatric Pilates studios on the UWS.
Just wondering…why doesn’t the guy you’re talking to have a mouth?
He’s the silent type
I have never met a man who does pilates only women. Why is that?
Again? What is he talking about?
We need Pilates just to get out of our front doors this snowy freezing horrendous storm. I tried to look out my windows! To NO AVAIL….. AH…a delicious cup of LATTE would be great right now
Exactly! Very funny…and banks and drugstores!
Where’s Julie Sorrentino’s pilates studio in this cartoon?
Take the hint Gary! LOL