Tag: financial district

Categories
Health Living

Fitness Friday: 5 Classes Inspired By Pilates and Ballet

There are many ways to get your fitness in each week, or even daily, but finding something you thoroughly enjoy doing while staying active can be tough. But little did you know, there’s a class out there for you.

There are different classes offered all around the city, from boxing to zumba to yoga to pilates and so many more. Finding a class you consistently go to each week, and enjoy it, is a difficult task. However, there are so many unique classes you can do and not even feel like you are working out.

Downtown Magazine put together a list of 5 workout classes that sculpt and tone your body using movements from pilates and ballet.

Pilates Reformer Class

Photo courtesy of Asphalt Green

Asphalt Green recently announced the addition of two new Pilates Reformer classes at the Battery Park Campus, Thursdays at 5:30 pm and Sunday’s at 11:00 am. You can find the full schedule here. These classes are structured for small groups which allow their Pilates instructors to provide individualized attention. When you purchase any Pilates package, you receive a free pilates reformer session.

Address: Asphalt Green at the Battery Park Campus  at 212 North End Ave, New York, NY 10282

Barre Fusion

Photo courtesy of CompleteBody

Along with others, CompleteBody offers Barre Fusion classes throughout the week for those who enjoy Ballet and Pilates. Exercises are done at the barre, on the floor, and on the mat to target every muscle to sculpt a long, lean body. You can find the full group fitness schedule for the Financial District here.

Address: CompleteBody at 10 Hanover Square, New York, NY 10005

Pure Barre

Photo courtesy of Pure Barre

Pure Barre has become extremely popular, probably due to its effective technique, which transforms the shape of a woman’s body in record-breaking time, in a friendly, high-energy atmosphere with fun and motivating music. They offer plenty of classes throughout the week and have the same flow each session, but with changing music and exercises, so that your experience is never the same. You can find the Financial District’s schedule here.

Address: Pure Barre Financial District at 80 Pine Street, First Floor, New York, NY 10038

Barione

Photo courtesy of Bari

Barione is the Bari Studio’s taste-of-everything intro class. It features dance, trampoline, and toning all within a 55-minute class. In this class, you will learn the sequences, become comfortable with bari, all while breaking a serious sweat and on your way to earning “bari rockstar status.” This class is offered every Sunday at 12:15 pm. You can find the full TriBeCa schedule, and the other classes offered here as well as the rates for the TriBeCa location here.

Address: The Bari Studio TriBeCa at 23 Leonard Street, New York, NY 10013

WundaBar Pilates

Photo courtesy of WundaBar

At the only New York location, WundaBar offers its reinvented Pilates class throughout the week. Their team of educators lead focused, high-energy core-shredding workouts taught at a cardio-intense pace with the integrity of Pilates biomechanics. It is the first class to combine the Reformer, Wunda Chair, Ballet Bar and Jump Board all into one unbelievable machine. You can find the WundaBar schedule for SoHo here.

Address: WundaBar SoHo at 21 Thompson Street, B, New York, NY 10013

Categories
Events Health

Fitness Friday: Outdoor Yoga

Fitness Friday is here and this week we are featuring the best outdoor yoga spots downtown. Summer is FINALLY officially here and it is the time to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, so why not find a local yoga class and enjoy the weather while relaxing and staying active?

Downtown has searched different outdoor yoga practices offered around Manhattan, focusing mainly on the Downtown area, but added a few close by just in case you find yourself in other areas of the city.

Downtown

Washington Square Park

Photo courtesy of NYC Parks

Each week all summer long, on Wednesdays at 8:30-9:30 a.m., Garibaldi Plaza in Washington Square Park puts on a yoga event with Sacred Sounds Yoga for FREE, courtesy of NYC Parks. Afterwards, from 10:00 to 10:45 a.m., your kids can also go to a free yoga class at the kids playground. Spend your Wednesdays in Washington Square Park to ensure a relaxing workout.

Battery Park 

Photo courtesy of NYC Parks

Battery Park offers two yoga sessions each week from now until August 27th by Tejal Patel of Tejal Yoga, who is dedicated and passionate. One session is on Sundays from 11:30 am to 12:30 p.m. and another is every Wednesday from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.. The suggested donation is $10, which goes to The Battery Conservancy.  You must RSVP to attend these sessions. Sunday mornings are for all ages while the Wednesday evening sessions are for the after-work crowd. I can vouch that this was a great class; peaceful, relaxing, and grounding. Take advantage of this opportunity to practice yoga in the beautiful Battery Park!

Citi Summer in the Square

Photo Courtesy of Summer in the Square

Every Thursday, in the morning and afternoon, in Union Square Park, Citi Summer in the Square has two yoga sessions you can attend up until August 10th. To start off your day, you can attend a 7 to 8 a.m. yoga session in the South Plaza, put on by Paragon sports. Or, to end your day, you can attend sunset yoga at 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the North Plaza, with New York Health & Racquet Club. All events in Citi Summer in the Square are free. Make your Thursdays extra special by participating in these awesome events while you can!

Complete Body – Financial District

Photo courtesy of Yelp

Every Wednesday at 7:30 a.m., there is a 45 minute Vinyasa yoga outside class in the Financial District location of Complete Body — located at 10 Hanover Square. It is an open level class driven to strengthen and open the body. Through different postures and certain breathing techniques, Complete Body encourages a “calm, self-awareness and vibrant energy.” Complete body requires a membership.

…. Along with these 4 spots, as promised we’ve included a few places abovee Downtown:

Downtown Goes Up

Summer on the Hudson

Photo courtesy of City Atlas

The Parks Department’s annual outdoor arts & culture festival has begun and takes place in Riverside Park, which is from 59th Street all the way to 153rd Street. Within Riverside Park South, every Wednesday from now until September 27 at 6:30 p.m. there is a yoga class – an evening salute to the sun, located at The Plaza at 66th Street. In Mid Riverside Park, Yoga Flow is every Thursday, present until September 28, at 6:30 p.m., located at the Lawn at 78th Street.

Bryant Park

Photo courtesy of NYC Parks

Open to all ages and fitness levels as well as free to the public, Bryant Park puts on a hit yoga class every Thursday — from now until September 7 — at 6 p.m. held on the lawn. This is their 14th season of outdoor yoga classes and allows anyone and everyone to have an opportunity to end up perfecting their downward dog at their own pace.

Hudson Park

Photo courtesy of HY/HK Alliance

Every Sunday, from now until August 6, the HY/HK Alliance puts on a free morning yoga session with Malorie Bryant 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.. Held at the Hudson Park Fountains, in Hudson Park (between W 34th and W 35th, 10th Avenue and 11th Ave), they are reaching out to all different levels and only require you to bring a mat. The Hudson Yards is a perfect place to practice yoga on the beautiful Manhattan Sunday mornings.

Along with these, Central Park is full of many yoga opportunities for beginners, all levels, and more. Although some may require a fee to join the class, there are classes offered at a variety of times and with different groups or even just meet-ups.

Namaste to summer days and outdoor yoga!

Categories
Fitness Health

Heidi Kristoffer Brings Yoga to the Financial District

Master yogi Heidi Kristoffer is on a one-woman mission to transform the Financial District “yoga desert” into an oasis. The neighborhood resident and mother of twin toddlers was initially mystified by the lack of options.

“There’s no classes here. There’s none. There’s zero in Financial Proper,” Kristoffer explained.

After noticing the extreme popularity of mid-morning yoga classes in TriBeCa, Kristoffer partnered with CompleteBody in Hanover Square to offer the same service in FiDi, especially catered to neighborhood moms. Every Wednesday morning, she holds a Power Flow yoga class at 9:30. Although it’s no easy task to break the ironclad routine of busy New York moms, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

“We have a lovely little crew of moms that come each week… It’s a support network, and such an unexpected one,” Kristoffer stated.

A strong believer in the connective power of yoga, Kristoffer hopes her FiDi class will provide a restorative atmosphere where maxed-out moms can take a little time for themselves and just breathe.

“You focus on your breathing, you focus on your body, you focus on your mind, which makes you a better mom, and a better everything,” she explained.

Access to CompleteBody’s host of amenities, including showers, a steam room, and a sauna, doesn’t hurt either.

“It’s like a pause button in the middle of the day,” Kristoffer said.

However, the power to help people improve their physical and mental wellness remains at the center of Kristoffer’s yoga philosophy. The former actress fell into the world of yoga somewhat by accident after an unanticipated move landed her far from her go-to gym, New York Sports Club. After taking one class at a studio close to her apartment, Kristoffer was hooked.

“I was sometimes taking three classes a day. I fell so hard, so fast, in love with the way yoga made me feel,” she explained.

When three of her upcoming films lost funding, Kristoffer attended a teacher-training course and soon took on instructing full-time, eventually working as a yoga expert for Shape magazine. Her mash-up fitness videos for Shape lead to the creation of her signature workout, CrossFlowX, a powerful combination of tabata interval training and yoga.

“I’ve always known that yogis need cardio, what I didn’t realize was how badly regular fitness people needed yoga… It’s great because it’s a doorway for people who would never take a yoga class,” Kristoffer said.

Currently, Kristoffer only offers CrossflowX classes at Five Pillars Yoga in the Upper East Side. However, if enough of her students are interested, Kristoffer has plans to offer a class downtown. While many find the workout intimidating, especially after watching the video available on her website, Kristoffer encourages those who want to be physically challenged to give it a try.

“There’s really something to this pushing hard and then going into a restorative yoga pose that maybe your body doesn’t love, because your body has no choice but to relax when its exhausted,” she explained.

For now, Kristoffer continues her crusade to bring yoga to, arguably, those in the city who need it most.

“There’s so much good that yoga can add to your life. Yogis bend so they don’t break. Everybody needs to bend so they don’t break.”

Photos by Jay Sullivan

Categories
News

Condolences to the family and friends of Bill Bernstein and The Downtown Alliance

William “Bill” Bernstein
1951-2016

IMG_5253_Final

The Downtown Alliance is deeply saddened today by the passing of our Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Bernstein, a former city official who played a significant role in shaping our vision and work for nearly two decades. Mr. Bernstein was 64 at the time of his death. Starting at the Alliance in 1997, Bill served as acting president three times and helped guide the Alliance during several tumultuous periods in Lower Manhattan’s history, including the attacks of September 11th 2001, the recession of 2008 and Hurricane Sandy.

“For Bill Bernstein, the Alliance was so much more than a job,” said Alliance President Jessica Lappin. “It was a personal and professional mission, a cause to which he devoted himself for nearly two decades. His wisdom and generosity helped build this organization and helped shape Lower Manhattan, many times behind the scenes. His impact was truly immeasurable, and we will miss him dearly.”

Bill’s judgment, attention-to-detail and financial expertise proved pivotal to the success of numerous key Alliance programs and initiatives. Following the attacks of September 11th, he helped devise a program to support more than 575 small businesses with a combination of grants, wage subsidies, low-interest loans and other forms of assistance. In the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, he helped create a “Back to Business” grant program which provided a total of more than $1.5 million in grants to 105 small businesses.

Before joining the Downtown Alliance, Bill was the First Deputy Executive Director of the New York City Department of City Planning for more than ten years. He managed the Department’s staff, human resources, labor relations and computer operations and oversaw its $15 million budget. Prior to this, he worked for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Rent Control Division and for the New York City Loft Board for sixteen years, serving in a number of management and policy positions.

Esteemed by his staff at the Alliance, he was an avuncular presence and was often sought after for advice of both a professional and personal nature. A beloved mentor to many, he prided himself on instilling a sense of responsibility and civic duty in his younger staff. Involved in almost every aspect of Alliance operations, Bill often half-jokingly referred to himself as “chief cook and bottle washer.” The office “green thumb,” he collected many plants and also helped his colleagues care for theirs.

An avid Yankees fan and voracious reader, he loved chatting about baseball, New York City politics and many other topics. In his free time, he enjoyed traveling and visiting baseball parks throughout the U.S.

For many years, he served on the Board of Directors of Futures and Options, a Lower Manhattan non-profit about which he cared deeply. The organization provides New York City teens with internships, mentoring and job training.

A devoted husband, Bill lost his wife Donna in 2013. He was the father of our colleague, Adam Bernstein, who works as an information associate in our operations division. A longtime resident of Flatbush, Brooklyn, Bill attended New York City public schools, including Stuyvesant High School, and graduated from City College of New York and New York University School of Business. In addition to his son Adam, he is also survived by his sister, Dava Jo Zavodnick.

Information about funeral and memorial arrangements will be forthcoming.

For more information contact:

Andrew Breslau
Senior Vice President of Communications & Marketing
Alliance for Downtown New York
120 Broadway Suite 3340
New York, NY 10271
212-835-2759
www.DowntownNY.com

Categories
Culture

Museum of Feelings in Downtown Manhattan

Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson
Photo Courtesy of the Museum of Feelings
Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson

Ever wonder how New York is feeling?

The Museum of Feelings is an interactive experience located in the Financial District; the museum explores the links between scents and emotions. Created by Glade, each room in the museum explores a different emotion with colors and Glade scents, while the exterior of the museum uses real-time data to reflect how New York is feeling at that time.

Photo Courtesy of Museum of Feelings
Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson

The Museum of Feelings also has a Moodlens feature on its website; snap a selfie and watch it change colors with your emotions. The museum partnered with Twitter to allow people to change their Twitter photo to their shifting Moodlens photo.

Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson
Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson

The museum will be open to the public, free of charge, until December 15. For more information, click here.

Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson
Photo Courtesy of SC Johnson

-by Kari Sonde

Categories
Dining Events

New Dos Toros Location

Photo Courtesy of Flickr

Next week on Tuesday, Dos Toros will be opening its ninth location in the Financial District at 101 Maiden Lane.

Dos Toros, the San Francisco-style Mexican taqueria popular throughout Manhattan, is known for its commitment to sustainability with natural and humane meats, GMO-free corn/ flour tortillas and rice, compostable utensils and BPA-free receipts.

“We are excited to add Dos Toros to our great mix of retail tenants at 2 Gold Street,” said Steve Gonzalez, Director of Retail Leasing at TF Cornerstone in a press release. “With its wide appeal and use of sustainable ingredients, Dos Toros will undoubtedly be a favorite among our residents and a great addition to the Financial District’s variety of eateries.”

For more about Dos Toros, click here.

-by Kari Sonde