It’s official the YMCA is now just “the Y” having dropped any refence to men, Christianity, or being an association from it’s name. I can’t say this is all that surprising. They’ve been letting women join for nearly 40 years and have long since stopped focusing on young men and on families instead. Meanwhile a few years ago our the local YMCA made a big deal of adding women-only excercise area so that ladies didn’t have to go all the way to the YWCA (which doesn’t let men or boys in at all) a few blocks away or one of the area’s for-profit Curves.
But they’ve ruined the song!
:mad:
Seeing as how they let women in now, I don’t think the Village People would have had as much fun there as they did anyway.
What have I told you about bothering me with details!?!?!??!??!?!??!?!?
Seriously, what have I told you about that? I don’t keep track of these things.
It’s about time, the rest of the world dropped it around 1990.
So it’s just the young now. Figures. They get all the good stuff.
Hmmph. I hope Mose Alison doesn’t get wind of this. “Young Blues” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Well, the M was always kinda hard to do. Hurts my shoulders. And the A was just a stylized dunce cap.
Everyone is taking the short cut. CBS is CBS Inc not Columbia Broadcasting System. When’s the last time you heard American Telephone and Telegraph. Who under 20 even knows what a telegraph is. Who said, “Did you look at the Sears Roebuck ad?”
Short is better, I’m far to busy to talk to people without using abbreviations. 
I don’t believe this is universally true of YWCA’s - I may be incorrect, but my grandfather lives in a retirement home right next door to the YWCA, and goes to a senior water aerobics class there (or at least he did in the past).
This particular YWCA is (or was a few years ago) all-female. One of my college classmates tried to join about that time and was directed to the YMCA by a very confused staffmember. I considered joining the YMCA since it was closer to home than my junior college’s student center, but I found out that they charge men & women the same fees despite not having an equivalent men-only exercise area and declined on principal. I also learned that woman had their own sauna in addition to the big coed one off the pool are (this bothered me more than the exercise area).
The Y where my family belongs has a large exercise room, as well as separate men-only and women-only exercise rooms attached to each gender’s locker room on the second floor, and a smaller Curves-type area where a recording directs you to change machines every minute or so. In addition to the adult-only lockers on the second floor, there are also smaller locker rooms just off the pool area for children, accompanying parents, and disabled people (the signs say something like “Mothers, girls under 17, and disabled women” and “Fathers, boys under 17, and disabled men.”) I’m going to feel a little weird only calling it the Y. Then again, I’ve only seen a few young men there, mostly heading in or out of the basketball gym. Mostly I see older adults, girls who attend my daughter’s and niece’s dance classes, and kids of both genders attending swimming lessons or tae kwon do.
As long we’re on the subject, I wonder if my local Y had actual dorms like the ones I read about in old books? I remember reading about guys showing up in New York City with no place to stay sleeping at the Y, and sometimes activities other than sleeping taking place there. Does anyone know if this actually happened?
Why?
Why ask Y?
tl; dr
My brother-in-law stayed at a Y while he was on a 3 month contract. He said it was pretty nice, and was centrally located. And knowing my brother-in-law, I strongly doubt any hanky panky on his end. I’m not sure I remember the city, though. Chicago?
It’s still open for dining, right?
The Chicago YMCA’s that have housing have yearly contracts, except for the one in north suburban Niles, Illinois.
I lived at one near Chicago back in 1992 for three months. The less said about that time, the better, although that was all me; it had nothing to do with the place. Only thing I didn’t particularly like there was the no-outgoing calls from the phone in the room.
The Y’s in our area, are primarily just fitness clubs. They compete directly with the for-profit fitness gyms but are able to offer lower membership prices, because they are tax exempt. Most of the facilities are very nice, most of them newly constructed or remodelded in the last 5 years. They do provide low or free memberships to those that ask, but they don’t advertise it.