Piper said he recently spotted a gay couple embrace as they departed just as Mayor Nutter walked by. Members include gay and straight singles, couples and families, students, seniors and city officials. While the venue has been dubbed by some as the city’s “gay gym,” and both Piper and Baer are members of the LGBT community, the club’s membership base is reflective of the diversity that abounds in Center City.
Since Piper took over, membership jumped from 1,400 to more than 4,000. “It was a dramatic investment of money, time, energy and people, and the marketplace responded quite aggressively.”
“What you see today is partly evolution but at the beginning it was really a revolution,” he said.
Piper noted that 12th Street - which opened before the modern concept of a fitness club became popularized - is not the standard “big-box gym in a shopping center,” but is rather “a wonderful, interesting labyrinth” that needs to be properly maintained, a challenging task he said he believes he lived up to.
