Cool Story, Bro

The Park Slope Y is...adequate.  It has one squat rack, one bench.  The problem is that the weight room as a whole is small, which means it will be tricky to find the extra space to set up something like a deadlift or a row.  I missed the Bed-Stuy Y's little squat nook, with the rack and Smith machine back-to-back off the main room.  It created a kind of zone of privacy that I wouldn't have at this Y.  I did have a totally lovely conversation with Abby, who showed me around and was endearingly SHOCKED that I wanted to see the weight room ("do you have any health goals?" she asked, and I made up a pretty arbitrary goal for bench presses, very conscious of the "lose weight" expectation), but the Y is very nearly as expensive (like, $2/month, though there's a little difference in the set-up costs too) as Body Reserve, and farther from my favorite Slope coffee shop and the Co-op, so...unless they give me shit about being a fat woman who wants to lift, or ring my fatphobia bell in general, Body Reserve is probably where I'm going to end up.  Visiting tomorrow.