Health

Enjoy the steep but social scene at Queens’ new climbing mecca

On a recent Friday night, the silk dancer finished her set hanging 30 feet in the air on a long strand of fabric attached to a beam, twirling quickly to Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good.”

At the bar, local beer was flowing freely, and Ginny Chen, a 29-year-old from Washington Heights, was trying to motivate a few others to dance. She didn’t care a bit that she still had chalk on her fingertips and some on her face.

This isn’t a club, after all. It’s the Cliffs, the city’s new indoor rock-climbing mecca in Queens, now one of the largest centers for belaying, bouldering, ripped back muscles and shredded hand calluses in the country.

Kat Sweeny (left) and Abby Fried lift weights and brews after their climbs.Zandy Mangold

“Climbers are always a good scene,” says Chen, with an arm around 26-year-old Caitlin Wagner, a friend she met while climbing.

The bar — open strictly to people who were done climbing for the day, for obvious reasons — was so popular, Rockaway Brewing Company had to make a run back to its headquarters a few blocks away for another keg.

The party was to celebrate the reopening of the Cliffs. In late October, the Department of Buildings shut it down over paperwork and inspection issues, but now the sprawling 30,000-square-foot former cellphone-accessories warehouse in Long Island City is back open. Its 50-foot-high, brightly colored walls and vertiginous routes are drawing climbers from all over the city.

The bar isn’t a permanent part of the gym, but expect it to make a regular comeback throughout the year. Climbers have lots to celebrate, owner Mike Wolfert says.

“We’ve been aggressively looking for space in New York City since 2007,” says Wolfert, 39. Few places had the height that could simulate rock peaks, but when this building came on the market two years ago, Wolfert, who also runs a gym upstate in Valhalla, pounced on it.

“Climbing is a great form of fitness, but there’s so much more to it that makes it special,” he says. “People come here when they’re not climbing, just to see their friends.”

Jasper Santa Ana, 33, was there with his friends, even if they were rooting against him (good-naturedly) as he hung 20 feet in the air.

“No, let him fall!” joked one of his pals while munching on an empanada from El Coqui, which had set up a table near the gym’s entrance.

DJ ColeTrain gets visitors rock ’n’ rolling after they hit the rock walls. Zandy Mangold

“It is typical when you’re doing a hard route and your friends see you, they usually cheer you on,” says Santa Ana, who lives on the Upper East Side. “But on the inside they’re like, ‘I hope he fails.’ ”

Members see familiar faces from other gyms, including Brooklyn Boulders in Gowanus, which Cliffs dethroned as the city’s largest climbing center. Local climbing star Ashima Shiraishi, a 13-year-old phenom ranked among the best climbers in the world, is a regular.

The Cliffs features 125 top-rope stations, a fitness center with free weights and workout machines, a slack-line (for practicing balance), a pro shop and a locker room with showers. Unlike other gyms, it has a separate 7,000-square-foot room just for birthday parties, so experienced climbers don’t have to battle toddlers for wall space.

It’s also a sign of the neighborhood’s resurgence, says Omar Montana, who went to high school in the area 10 years ago.

“It wasn’t a pretty place at all. The streets were rundown, and it was not good to walk around here at night,” says the 25-year-old, who lives in College Point, Queens, in between working on routes.

Did he get the chance to flirt with any climbers?

“It’s mostly friends that are here,” he says, while surveying the after-climb bar party. “Hopefully in the future.”

Omar Ahmed works for the company Tent & Trails, which partners with all the gyms in the area. He says the nature of climbing is collaborative, so every gym is friendly. The Cliffs just happens to have more room.

“There are no egos involved,” he says. “Everyone’s just here to be like, ‘You’re a climber, I’m a climber.’ That’s it.”