These Upper West Siders Call the JCC Home

In the 21 years they’ve been coming to the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, Lenore and Steve Sherman have enjoyed a range of classes and programs together, from Zumba, Board30, and Pilates to jewelry-making, films, and conversations. They’re also regulars at the fitness center. “I’ll try any class the gym has to offer,” says Steve.

But it’s not just the programs that bring the Shermans back day after day. From the moment they walk through the doors at the JCC, this UWS couple seems to know everyone…and everyone seems to know them.

“My husband is like the mayor of the JCC,” says Lenore, who worked as a New York City Department of Education elementary school reading teacher and later as an instructor for the JCC’s afterschool reading program at PS 163. Steve is a retired high school dean.

“My wife says, ‘Do you come to exercise or talk?” Steve adds.

They can easily reel off a list of staff members whom they consider their friends, from the security guards who greet them when they walk in, to those they’ve become close with in the fitness center. Steve even discovered some of his former students among the staff, including Christian Ramirez, former fitness operator and personal training director, former personal trainer Andre Lewis, and his late brother and former fitness reception manager, Marc Lewis. He saw their relationship transform from teacher-student to friends.

“Steve was so thrilled they [Ramirez and the Lewis brothers] found a place at the JCC, and that he had the opportunity to watch them grow professionally,” says Chief Health and Wellness Officer Todd Elkins, who formed an instant bond with Sherman when the three men introduced them.

“We talk about everything–food, sports, politics,” Elkins says. “He and I would ride bikes in the cycle studio and talk. It’s great having conversations with him.”

At the JCC pre-pandemic, the Shermans also became friends with residents from their own apartment building who are also JCC members. “When you live in Manhattan, you say hello or nod to people, but you don’t really know them,” Lenore says. “But when you see them at the gym every day, you talk.”

For such a social couple, the impact of COVID,and the temporary closing of the JCC hit hard. “Our daughter is a teacher, and she was really concerned. She didn't want us to go to the JCC or Citarella’s or Zabar’s. The JCC was our go-to place, the hand that reached out, for everything,” Steve says. ”What were we going to do all day?”

Unlike many, the Shermans, who have been married 40 years, never took to Zoom. “There was no way we were going to do virtual,” says Lenore. “ I didn’t want to bounce around the living room or bedroom.”

“You could exercise at home in theory, but it never happened,” says Steve.

While some of their JCC staff friends reached out (literally) by phone, ”a double mitzvah,” says Lenore, they missed seeing them in person. By the summer of 2021, he and Lenore were talking about returning in person.

In October 2021, they did.

At first, the Shermans found the quiet of the building disheartening. “We were disappointed, because nobody was back, but it also felt very safe. We came back every single day from that point,” Lenore says, and they encouraged others to do the same. They told members they ran into about the JCC’s safety protocols and the lower number of people in the building, and “slowly but surely, they started to trickle in.”

There are very few days when the Shermans are not at the JCC. They’re usually in the building for a class in the morning or early afternoon, then stay for a while to talk to their friends or just hang out. Steve comes on Sundays but not Fridays; Lenore takes the weekends off. Usually you’ll find both in the same class. “We don’t do everything together, but everything we do here is together,” she says.

“If she’s going to the moon, I’m going to the moon,” Steve adds. “My best friend is right here.”

After two-plus decades as members, the Shermans can’t pinpoint one favorite memory of their time at the JCC, though coming back after so many months away might very well take that honor. But that aside, Lenore says, “Any day that we come is a happy day.”

While the Shermans are fans of the JCC’s offerings, it’s really the people behind them that bring the couple back again and again. “I tell my daughter, people who are special to you, you put on a list and you never forget, “ says Steve. “There’s not that many in a lifetime.”

Sherri Lerner is the former editorial director at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. She has written and edited for numerous publications and is currently on the staff of the Wechsler Center.