Just in time to help relieve the stress of finals, students celebrated the reopening of Hemenway Gymnasium on April 5. The renovated gym features $100,000 of new fitness equipment, a larger weight room and an improved aerobics area.
After years of complaints about the gym’s cramped, dungeon-like atmosphere and outdated equipment, Law School Council leaders approached Dean Robert Clark ’72 this year with a plan for improvements.
“The Hemenway Gym served as a time capsule,” said Law School Council president Manoj Mate ’00. “It showed what a state-of-the-art gym looked like in the 1950s.”
A gift from Robert Haas ’72 helped add five treadmills, five exercise bikes, and four elliptical cross-trainers, as well as new free weight equipment. Construction workers knocked out a wall between two basement squash courts to make room for a new weight room, and transformed a top-floor room into an aerobics area. The renovations required approval from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which owns and operates the building.
At the reopening ceremony, students enjoyed fruit smoothies, watched Dean Clark perform some inaugural exercises, and marveled at the new facilities.
“I think it’s great. It’s got everything you can ask for,” said Karl Fanter ’02 as he prepared to do squats on one of the new machines. “They did a really good job.”