A love letter to Coles, our favorite cockroach-filled gym

After a long practice in Coles, the basketball team and I hit the showers to get ready to go pass out on the couches up stairs. As I open my locker I brace myself for the small avalanche of random gear that comes pouring out. I wonder how it all fit in the small locker the first place.

We scoot past each other in towels and kick over our backpacks to make room to walk as members of the soccer and track team come in to get ready for their practices. I head back to the showers and I hear someone yell “Ahh it’s so cold!”, and three people yell back “Same it won’t warm up!” I sigh and start walking to the general locker room to take my chances with those showers. I finally get into a stall and turn my water on only to hear a scream coming from the far stall. Then another scream from the next stall over: “COCKROACH!”

Never having the stomach for bugs I run out of the shower naked and yell as the nasty thing crawled from one shower to the next. “LIV KILL IT!” I say. The freshman automatically starts throwing bottles of soap, shampoo and conditioner until it stops moving. “OK, it’s dead”, she says back. I thank her from the heavens above and head back into the stall, continuously looking at the roach to make sure it’s not moving.

There is always this weird green algae looking substance that surrounds the rim of the shower head, but hey, at least the water is warm. When I’m done I head back to the varsity locker room and finish getting ready. Once I leave the locker room, I stand and wait for possibly the slowest elevator on NYU’s campus, because during basketball season, the only way I’m taking the stairs is if there is a fire.

Let’s not forget to mention I’m already sweating again because there’s no air conditioning. A girl on the volleyball team walks past me as she sees me waiting. “I got stuck in there this morning, you sure you want to risk it?” I look back at her tiredly and say, “I always risk it.” I put my laundry bag in the equipment room, grab a bagel from NoHo where they already know my order, go back into Coles, then pass out with the rest of my teammates on the couches.

It’s safe to say Coles is in some need of some updating. The gym is 34 years old. They don’t show the locker rooms to recruits for a reason. And for everyone who doesn’t know or needs confirming, yes, NYU has athletics.

After pushing the date back from August 2015, to October 2015, to December 2015, apparently Coles is finally closing in January 2016. Many of those who play sports at NYU did not really believe it was going to happen. But this time they even scheduled a “Coles is Closing” party for alumni, athletes and other students on January 9th, so this time we’re confident that it’s really happening.

The athletic director has held meetings with athletes to assure us there will be adequate accommodations for athletes and other students who regularly use Coles. There are complaints because none of the accommodations are able to replace all that Coles provided, including a diving pool, five courts used for basketball, volleyball and tennis (not including the three tennis courts on the roof), a running track, wrestling rooms and around 10 racquetball and squash courts.

Not to mention we no longer have a home gym for basketball and volleyball games, or fencing and wrestling matches. A new gym in Lafayette is supposed to be ready for Spring semester and have cardio, strength and studio space. Palladium will still be open but with only one basketball court and no tennis courts, track, diving pool or racquetball and squash courts, it hardly scratches the surface of what Coles provides.

Palladium is already known to be crowded so it’s hard to image how it will be once Coles is down. Intramural basketball is moving to Chelsea Pier, but there is no reserved space for free play and pick up basketball. Basketball, volleyball, wrestling and fencing will be the last teams to complete NYU’s list of athletics that do NOT have a home gym/field.

On the more sentimental side, Coles is where you can go to sleep, eat, do homework or hang out with your friends. There’s the group of guys who get together to play pick up basketball almost every day of the week. There’s a woman who has her own faithful water aerobics class. Or the man who comes in the afternoons to practice his dives.

College Connection, a program that teaches elementary through high school kids about college, will no longer be able to tour Coles, where the kids run onto the basketball court and excitedly ask questions like if they can go in the pool one day. Athletes will have to find a new home for the “Violet Games”, an annual competition in which every sports team dresses in a unique theme to play dodgeball, tug-o-war and other games. Even Greek life at NYU uses Coles to host their version of the games.

Closing down Coles will mean more than finding a new place to get on a treadmill — it will mean closing down a place where a small community congregates to participate in various activities and develop friendships.

“Coles is a dump,” says Maya, a senior on the basketball team, “but it’s our dump.”

It will be sad to see it go.