Doug Eidd, a grizzled eighty-seven-year-old with a perpetual cigar in his mouth, had owned and managed the gym since it opened in 1962. He worked ten-hour days, six days a week, running the gym and training members who sought out his considerable experience. In his heyday he worked with professional boxers and bodybuilders, but in recent years, people of all backgrounds and body shapes joined the gym for its unpretentious atmosphere. I became one of them.

Doug had to close the gym on short notice in 2018. I returned every day to document the removal of the equipment until the gym was empty. I always thought that Doug’s Gym was a time capsule yet to be buried. The time had finally come.