Hidden on the second floor of this building adjacent to the JMZ elevated train line in South Williamsburg is Frenchie’s Gym, a slice of authentic old school Brooklyn culture that has somehow managed to avoid the gentrification wrecking ball rapidly swinging toward it.

Blink and you’ll miss it. From the ground level, the only evidence of a gym is this red awning over a wooden door. No neon signs with enormous fist icons, eXtreme in-your-face fonts, or toned girls with clipboards trying to sucker you into trading your soul for a duffel bag.

But to those that look closely, the door alone should give an early indication that Frenchie’s has infinitely more character than any modern gym you’ll find anywhere in New York City. Old polished wood, worn with age, surrounds chicken-wire glass. The type of door they don’t make anymore. The type of door no one would ever put on a modern gym.

This is the kind of door that reminds me of a Raymond Chandler novel – private dick Philip Marlowe standing in front of it, hand on the knob, sucking on a cigarette and debating whether or not the low pay he’s getting for the case is worth the risk of going upstairs to question a suspect who looks like the guy on the glass.

Of course, Marlowe would go up, and I had to too.

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