Manhattan
Community Squash Center Changes Its Name To “Open Squash”, Holds Hugely
Successful Fundraiser Featuring World No 1 Ali
Farag by Rob Dinerman
photos courtesy John Musto
Dateline October 8th, 2021
--- On the evening of September 29th, a filled-to-the-brim crowd
participated in one of the most captivating events in the recent
history of squash in New York City. In his introductory remarks prior
to an exhibition match between current World Open champion Ali Farag
and 2018 British Open champion Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Board member
James Green announced that the host Manhattan Community Squash Center,
a five-court facility that has become an increasingly active presence
in the Manhattan squash scene ever since it opened in November 2019,
was renaming itself “Open Squash” to more fully reflect its primary
mission of making squash more accessible to all and “open” to everyone.
The Farag-Rodriguez match was the highlight of a fundraiser on behalf
of the club’s Junior Scholarship Fund, which will provide
“scholarships” aimed at enabling junior players who would otherwise be
unable to afford the expense to play and take lessons at the club.
Prior to playing their best-of-three exhibition match – which featured
some spectacular shot-making and retrievals on the part of this pair of
PSA superstars that electrified the packed gallery --- both Farag (who
arrived in New York fresh from having won the Oracle NetSuite Open in
San Francisco less than 48 hours earlier) and Rodriguez played practice
games with a host of the club’s junior and adult members. Their
interaction before, during and after the match, both with each other
and with the spectators, was so friendly and upbeat that it infused the
entire evening with a positive energy and an appreciation for what a
wonderful sport squash can be when it is played at such a high level
and in such a praiseworthy spirit.
The opening of the club nearly two years ago represented
the culmination of what Green described as “a ten-year journey” that
began when the Printing House in the West Village did away with its
squash courts in December 2009, part of a discouraging pattern that
emerged during the first decade of the 2000’s in which the courts at a
number of commercial clubs in New York were replaced by fitness
machines and aerobics studios, leaving the squash players stranded and
without the ability to continue playing squash unless they joined an
expensive (and in many cases exclusive) private club. However, instead
of submitting to this latter development, a bunch of the displaced
Printing House squash players decided to “fight back” by building a
club of their own rather than join an existing club. Among them were
Green, David Puchkoff and David Ellen, the current Chairman of the
Board, whose wife, Ingrid, was captain of Harvard’s 1987
national-champion women’s team. There were a host of others from the
Printing House era who came and went throughout the intervening decade,
during which several possible sites and financing options were explored
(and in most cases rejected) before they finally settled on The
Engineering Society Building of New York, located on 25 West 39th
Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues), and began construction.
Right from the start, the goal was to make squash more
accessible to the general public and to create what their literature
called “a squash-specific YMCA that’s just a bit more modern.” To that
end, they set aside a portion of their memberships in order to enable
them to offer discounted deals to those who wouldn’t be able to pay the
full membership fees, while also offering a variety of
differently-priced membership options. The Junior Scholarship Fund was
established along these same philosophical lines, and the inaugural
fundraiser in late September was deemed a huge success in getting this
newly established Fund up and running.
The Board has appointed an impressive group of people to
its key positions. Cleve Miller, who sits on the Board and for the past
several years has served as President of the New York metropolitan
squash association, is the club’s General Manager. His staff includes
Director of Squash John Musto, Director of Squash Operations David
Hughes, Head of Junior Development Josh Easdon and Julie Lilien, who is
the squash liaison with the Hudson Guild, a community organization
based in Chelsea which sends a number of its junior squash players to
Open Squash. Both Musto, who refereed the Farag-Rodriguez exhibition
and for a number of years was the head squash pro at the Princeton Club
of New York, and Lilien are winners of multiple U. S. age-group
national championships, and Easdon developed an outstanding junior
program at the Cobble Hill Club until the squash courts there were
razed late last year.
In addition, Harvard’s head coach Mike Way, who has led
the Crimson men’s and women’s teams to a total of 11 national college
team championships and 12 national college individual championships
(hence 23 national championships in all) during his decade at the helm,
was recently appointed as the Senior Advisor to Open Squash, and two of
his most prominent Harvard squash protégés, namely Farag and PSA rookie
pro Gina Kennedy (who between them won five of those 12 individual
titles), were named the first two Open Squash Touring Pro Program
participants, in which capacity they will represent the club in PSA
tournaments and wear the Open Squash logo on their shirts.
Board President Ellen and his passionately committed crew
have ambitious expansion plans going forward, beginning with a second
club in Manhattan’s financial district slated to open during Calendar
2022. Anyone who was present at the fundraiser last month could not
help being struck by a buzz of excitement in the air, the happy energy
that permeated the environment and the uplifting sense that something
special is definitely happening here.
Anyone interested in learning more about Open Squash can do so by going to the club’s new website, opensquash.org.
